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1

NEAL R. GROSS

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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH 

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

WORKER HEALTH 

+ + + + +

URANIUM REFINING ATOMIC WEAPONS EMPLOYERS

WORK GROUP

+ + + + +

TUESDAY

JULY 19, 2016

+ + + + +

The Work Group convened in the Montreal 

Room of the Cincinnati Airport Marriott, 2395 

Progress Drive, Hebron, Kentucky, at 9:00 a.m., 

Henry Anderson, Chairman, presiding.

PRESENT:

HENRY ANDERSON, Chairman

R. WILLIAM FIELD, Member

DAVID KOTELCHUCK, Member
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ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

DAVE ALLEN, DCAS*

BOB BARTON, SC&A*

HANS BEHLING, SC&A*

RON BUCHANAN, SC&A*

ROSE GOGLIOTTI, SC&A*

LARA HUGHES, DCAS

JOYCE LIPSZTEIN, SC&A*

JOHN MAURO, SC&A*

JIM NETON, NIOSH

STEVE OSTROW, SC&A*

MATTHEW SMITH, ORAU*

JOHN STIVER, SC&A

DENNIS STRENGE, ORAU*

WILLIAM THURBER, SC&A

JOE ZLOTNICKI, SC&A*

*Participating via telephone
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Contents

Welcome and Roll Call ............................ 4

SEC-00217 Westinghouse Electric Corp. (New Jersey) 

Petition covering the period 1960 to 2011 ........ 6

Validity of the Coworker Model for United Nuclear 

Corporation ..................................... 23

SC&A Review of DCAS-TKBS-0009, Revision 2 for Hooker 

Electrochemical Company ......................... 53

W.R. Grace and Company in Erwin, Tennessee Update on 

Findings ........................................ 73

NUMEC White Paper Discussion .................... 85

Adjourn ........................................ 206
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

2 (8:57 a.m.)

3 Welcome and Roll Call

4 MR. KATZ: So, we can get started. We 

5 are a couple of minutes early but we have got a roll 

6 call to do and so on.

7 (Roll call.)

8 MR. KATZ: Okay, so let me just then 

9 note we have a lot of people on the line. Please 

10 mute your phones except when you are addressing the 

11 group. That will just help out with the audio.

12 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Ted, I'm having a 

13 little trouble getting in on Live Meeting. Now, 

14 I would like to get on if I can. The Live Meeting 

15 has come up but I haven't -- I put in the password 

16 and I don't seem to be getting the code and the 

17 password but I don't seem to be getting it coming 

18 up.

19 MR. KATZ: So, you shouldn't even have 

20 to put in a password, per se. You should just be 

21 clicking on a link. Is that what you are doing?
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1 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: I am clicking on a 

2 link, yes.

3 MR. KATZ: And you're saying the link 

4 is not bringing you in? Sometimes you have to 

5 repeat the link, clicking on the link more than once 

6 before it will actually bring it up.

7 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay.

8 MR. STIVER: Yeah, sometimes that link 

9 will put you into the wrong bin. I found that if 

10 you copy it and paste it in your browser, it will 

11 take you right to the meeting.

12 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay. Meanwhile, 

13 I can certainly go onto the different files that 

14 you sent the other day.

15 MR. KATZ: Okay, because I am not sure 

16 how many, if any, presentations there will be on 

17 Live Meeting anyway, Dave.

18 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right. Okay, 

19 good. Well, fine. Then, let's go ahead.

20 MR. KATZ: Okay, very good. So, then, 

21 again, mute your phones, please, folks, except when 

22 you are addressing the group. *6 to mute, *6 to 
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1 come off of the mute.

2 And Andy, it is your meeting.

3 SEC-00217 Westinghouse Electric Corp. (New Jersey) 

4 Petition covering the period 1960 to 2011

5 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay. Well, 

6 welcome, everybody. And we've been through roll 

7 call, so the first business is to deal with the 

8 Westinghouse Electric SEC petition, which was 

9 covering the period 1960 to 2011 in Bloomfield, New 

10 Jersey.

11 There's a couple of findings and 

12 observations that remain from our earlier 

13 discussion. I don't know, it's probably 

14 worthwhile if someone can go through, just briefly, 

15 the petition and the overall issues and what the 

16 recommendation was.

17 DR. NETON: Well, the petition was SEC 

18 Number 217, which is Westinghouse Bloomfield. And 

19 we had actually proposed that Classes be added at 

20 the Board meeting. I forget when that was. The 

21 report was submitted April 14, 2015. So there's 

22 a couple of periods that were added, very brief 
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1 periods: February 1958 through May 31st, 1958, and 

2 June 1st, 1959 through June 30th, 1959. So those 

3 two AWE covered periods were recommended to be 

4 added, and they have been added.

5 But that created a couple residual 

6 contamination periods. And so the Advisory Board 

7 asked SC&A to review our approaches that were used 

8 for the residual contamination periods. And that 

9 is what we are basically going to discuss today.

10 And I think probably SC&A could do a 

11 better job summarizing their findings.

12 MR. STIVER: Yes, and Bill Thurber of 

13 SC&A was the author and the guiding force behind 

14 that review. So, Bill, if you'd like to go ahead.

15 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Go ahead.

16 MR. THURBER: We had two observations 

17 and two findings. And the observations are, 

18 obviously, not terribly significant but, it's just 

19 a matter of consistency and good practice. 

20 One of the observations dealt with the 

21 fact that the ingestion exposures should be 

22 adjusted for the varying lengths of the workday 
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1 over the residual periods. And based on the 

2 assumptions that had been used in TBD-6000, for 

3 example. And so depending on what time, what point 

4 in time the residual exposure occurred, you should 

5 use eight hours or eight and a half -- or, I'm sorry, 

6 8.8 or 9.6 hours.

7 The second observation was that, at the 

8 time, NIOSH provided not only comments but they 

9 also provided a model spreadsheet and there was a 

10 little discrepancy between the deposition time 

11 that was used in the model spreadsheet and the 

12 deposition time that was used in their review.

13 So those were the two observations. 

14 There were also two findings.

15 DR. NETON: Maybe I can just address 

16 those.

17 MR. THURBER: Sure.

18 DR. NETON: We totally agree with the 

19 observations and we are going to modify the 

20 approach as appropriate.

21 MR. THURBER: Perfect. With regard to 

22 the findings, again, we had two findings. One was 
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1 that the procedure used to calculate the air 

2 concentrations during the first residual period, 

3 and actually all residual periods, wasn't 

4 consistent with the guidance provided in 

5 OTIB-0070. 

6 And the second finding was that the way 

7 that the ingestion doses were treated was not 

8 consistent with the concept that has been evolved 

9 over several meetings regarding hand-to-mouth 

10 transfer and the fact that using TIB-009 was not 

11 appropriate for the residual period. And I think 

12 that has generally been established on a number of 

13 recent cases, that NIOSH has stated that they agree 

14 that that is not the appropriate approach for the 

15 ingestion.

16 So, those were the two findings that we 

17 had.

18 DR. NETON: Okay. Yeah, we definitely 

19 agree that using the TIB-009 in the residual 

20 contamination period is not appropriate, although 

21 it is a little confusing, because in here we 

22 actually had an air concentration value. But it 
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1 really doesn't matter because the TIB-009 assumes 

2 you have an active generator of airborne. And so 

3 you would grossly underestimate the ingestion, 

4 based on using a resuspended air concentration. 

5 So, we agree with that.

6 We will modify this, although we're 

7 still somewhat thinking about this fairly 

8 extensive discussion in SC&A's review of what's 

9 appropriate to use, and we are still not -- we're 

10 still debating internally whether or not, if we use 

11 the so-called U approach, the NUREG approach, that 

12 you assume a 1.1 times 10 to the minus 4 square 

13 meters per hour ingestion -- that's right out of 

14 the NUREG -- whether that contaminated that coffee 

15 cup source term that's used during the covered 

16 period, where you have an active generator which 

17 really needs to be added back in there. 

18 When you have an active generator, the 

19 coffee cup source term is about ten percent, which 

20 is half of the ingestion and then half of it is from 

21 the contaminated surface.

22 When you get into the resuspension 
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1 route, that becomes a much, much less important 

2 source term. In fact, I think it's less than ten 

3 percent, if you calculate it out.

4 So, we're still debating on how we're 

5 going to do that. In principle, though, we totally 

6 agree with SC&A's comments. And I think we are 

7 going to have to put together a little more formal 

8 response to how we're going to deal with that issue, 

9 whether it's 1.1 times 10 to the minus 4 

10 independently or whether we add back in this 

11 contaminated coffee cup, because they were derived 

12 from somewhat different principles and I think 

13 we're kind of mixing modalities a little bit.

14 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: So, is what you are 

15 saying is that OTIB-0070 is what is going to -- I 

16 mean, that's broadly used --

17 DR. NETON: It's broadly used.

18 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: As opposed to -- I 

19 want to close out this specific site.

20 DR. NETON: Yes, this specific site --

21 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: So, I think we are 

22 good on the site, on the broader OTIB.
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1 DR. NETON: Exactly. There's a 

2 broader recommendations in there, in their 

3 finding, that suggested that TIB-009 and -0070, 

4 either/or, may need to be readjusted, because 

5 TIB-0070 says use TIB-009.

6 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yeah.

7 DR. NETON: And that can be used. It's 

8 an interpretation issue. TIB-009, it's okay, if 

9 you take the last air concentration value that was 

10 measured at the end of operations and use that to 

11 calculate ingestion at the start of the residual, 

12 it's okay to use TIB-009. We've done that before.

13 But if you immediately go to the 

14 resuspension mode, it's not appropriate to use 

15 TIB-009. We agree with that.

16 We're going to have to flesh that out 

17 but we agree with SC&A's finding and whether we use 

18 -- well, they recommend an approach that's based 

19 on TBD-6000, which we agree with, which is you drop 

20 down air concentration based on TBD-6000 and that 

21 will generate a source term on the ground. And 

22 whether it's 85 dpm or 69 dpm per cubic meter air.
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1 MR. THURBER: The issue that we had was 

2 -- I mean, the number is small, however you look 

3 at it. No question. The issue that we had was we 

4 were uncomfortable with back-extrapolating, 

5 because that was not the way the guidance was 

6 written. The approach that NIOSH took, the 

7 difference was in the noise, but we felt that if 

8 you go to a lot of trouble to develop the guidances, 

9 you ought to try and use them going forward in your 

10 extrapolations.

11 And the question then is, if you're 

12 going forward, what are the assumptions you make 

13 and the guidance says, well, use TBD-6000. And you 

14 go to TBD-6000 and you can come up with some 

15 options. But we felt that that's the approach that 

16 should be taken, rather than developing something 

17 new.

18 DR. NETON: We agree. And I think what 

19 I'd like to suggest is that these may be held in 

20 abeyance as Site Profile issues, not SEC issues. 

21 Because we're not 100 percent ready here to agree 

22 on these sort of the nuances of the coffee cup 
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1 ingestion versus -- that's a little bit more 

2 broad-based. But if we just hold this in abeyance 

3 as a Site Profile issue, I think that's fine with 

4 us.

5 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay.

6 DR. NETON: We agree in principle.

7 MR. THURBER: I certainly have no 

8 problem with that. They're not SEC issues.

9 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: And Ted, would 

10 that then stay with us, our Committee, or would it 

11 be --

12 MR. KATZ: It would stay with you just 

13 to see that it gets closed out at whatever point 

14 you sort it out.

15 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay.

16 DR. MAURO: This is John. Just a quick 

17 question. Again, it's procedural.

18 We're, in effect, in the world of the 

19 ingestion pathway, I believe in OTIB-009. And I 

20 know that we've agreed that during the residual 

21 period the hand-to-mouth approach is the 

22 appropriate way to go, but I don't recall if there 
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1 has ever been a procedure, a revision to a procedure 

2 that was sort of formalized, that says, okay, when 

3 you are in this situation, you do this. It has 

4 really been resolved on a case-by-case basis, or 

5 am I incorrect about that?

6 DR. NETON: No, that's correct, John.

7 DR. MAURO: Okay.

8 DR. NETON: That's why I am suggesting 

9 -- this is more of an -- I don't want call it 

10 overarching because that has kind of special 

11 meaning, but it is a more general issue than just 

12 this specific site. It's certainly not an SEC 

13 issue, but we do need -- we agree that we need to 

14 address it. And that's why I'd like to keep it open 

15 until we can put out some more formal response, a 

16 more formal approach. And whether that's 

17 modifying the procedure, and how we modify that 

18 procedure, I think that's what we are still 

19 discussing.

20 I did put out a White Paper during one 

21 of our discussions on the ingestion approach, the 

22 surface area approach, but that was just a White 
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1 Paper, not a procedure.

2 I think if we hold this open, all of this 

3 will sort of come out eventually when we modify the 

4 procedure appropriately.

5 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: So, do you have a 

6 timeframe for that? I mean, you know, what's your 

7 plan?

8 DR. NETON: This should be very 

9 straightforward. I don't see this is going to 

10 require a lot of research. I would say, you know, 

11 months, a couple of months, maybe.

12 MR. KATZ: Okay, so it's going to be in 

13 progress is really what it is, but it's in progress 

14 as a Site Profile issue.

15 DR. NETON: Yes, I would say in 

16 progress is probably better.

17 (Simultaneous speaking.)

18 MR. KATZ: Changed from an SEC issue. 

19 Okay.

20 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: And the two 

21 observations we've resolved. So, those are 

22 closed. We closed those two observations. 
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1 They're pretty straightforward.

2 MR. KATZ: You have the other finding. 

3 Right? There are two findings.

4 DR. NETON: Well, they're both related 

5 to the same thing.

6 MR. KATZ: Okay, so both of them.

7 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yeah.

8 DR. NETON: Well, the first finding had 

9 to do with the backward extrapolation.

10 MR. KATZ: Okay, right.

11 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Which the 85 was 

12 more claimant-favorable.

13 DR. NETON: Essentially, SC&A 

14 suggested that the backward extrapolation was not 

15 recommended by the procedure and it's not 

16 necessarily claimant-favorable using the -- 

17 (Simultaneous speaking.)

18 DR. NETON: So, it kind of validated that 

19 it was claimant-favorable to large extent.

20 MR. THURBER: In that particular case. 

21 Because, obviously, as we've discussed before, if 

22 the decay rate is rapid and you are doing a forward 
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1 extrapolation, the dose is going to be much less 

2 because it drops off so quickly. When you're doing 

3 backward extrapolation, you could come up with a 

4 different -- in this particular case, it didn't 

5 make any difference.

6 DR. NETON: But I agree and we will 

7 address both of these in the revision. I mean, 

8 maybe there's some clarificational language in 

9 that table that is used in --

10 MR. KATZ: And we should check in, 

11 Andy, with Bill and Dave. Are you clear and okay 

12 with all of this?

13 MEMBER FIELD: Yeah, I think it's 

14 moving in the right direction. The review, I 

15 thought, spelled out what was of concern pretty 

16 well.

17 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: And I am fine with 

18 them.

19 MR. KATZ: Okay, very good.

20 DR. NETON: So, that could be the maybe 

21 closed out at the Board meeting?

22 MR. KATZ: So we should hear, just, 
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1 again, let's check again and see. Do we have the 

2 petitioner for Westinghouse on the line?

3 (No audible response.)

4 MR. KATZ: Okay, not. So, otherwise, 

5 we would want to hear what they had to say.

6 Right, so this is on the agenda for the 

7 August Board meeting. So, do you need some help 

8 with someone making some slides for you?

9 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yeah. I mean, do 

10 we just want to take these two?

11 MR. KATZ: Well, the only findings that 

12 were outstanding.

13 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yeah.

14 MR. KATZ: So, you could maybe have a 

15 slide or two just reminding people about this SEC 

16 and how it was dispositioned already.

17 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yeah, let's do 

18 that. 

19 MR. KATZ: And then take on these 

20 findings and how they are basically transferred to 

21 being Site Profile issues.

22 DR. NETON: And that will close the 
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1 issue.

2 MR. KATZ: And that will enable them to 

3 close out that SEC petition. And John, would you 

4 be willing to have someone take care of those 

5 slides? 

6 MR. STIVER: Sure.

7 MR. KATZ: So, it sounds like it is four 

8 or five slides, a pretty short presentation.

9 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yeah.

10 MR. KATZ: It's whatever it takes.

11 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay. So with 

12 that, we will now move on to another one that's been 

13 languishing for a while, United Nuclear.

14 DR. NETON: Who wants to take the lead 

15 on taking that one on? Hans? 

16 MR. STIVER: Hans, are you on right 

17 now?

18 MR. KATZ: Maybe on mute.

19 MR. STIVER: He's probably on mute.

20 MR. KATZ: Hans Behling, are you on the 

21 line, perhaps on mute? I mean, he was on.

22 MR. STIVER: Yeah, he was. He was on 
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1 the roll call.

2 MR. KATZ: He joined us at the 

3 beginning.

4 MR. STIVER: He might have got cut off.

5 MR. KATZ: John, or somebody, can you 

6 maybe call Hans on another line or something, or 

7 email him just to see if he has lost his connection? 

8 John Mauro?

9 DR. MAURO: Oh, I can do that, sure.

10 MR. KATZ: You or whoever might have 

11 Hans' phone number.

12 DR. MAURO: I'll try to reach him right 

13 now while we are continuing.

14 MR. KATZ: Thank you.

15 (Pause.)

16 DR. MAURO: You may want to -- I now 

17 that United Nuclear is in pretty good shape, if I 

18 recall. I remember reading the report on that.

19 MR. KATZ: Right.

20 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Once we got it 

21 straight, we were in good shape.

22 DR. MAURO: While I'm trying to track 
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1 him down, I do have a suggestion, but certainly --

2 Hooker and W.R. Grace, the last two on our list, 

3 are also fairly simple and straightforward. And 

4 the one that is going to give us a little bit of 

5 work to do is going to be NUMEC, which happens to 

6 be mine. And all I could offer up is, while I'm 

7 trying to run down Hans to call out United Nuclear, 

8 I could see us picking up Hooker, because I think 

9 Bill, again, is on the line, and Bill is in a 

10 position to talk about Hooker while I'm trying to 

11 get a hold of Hans.

12 MR. KATZ: Okay. Bill is in the room.

13 DR. NETON: Well, I need to get Dave 

14 Allen on the line, though, at this point.

15 MR. KATZ: Dave, have you joined us 

16 yet?

17 MR. ALLEN: This is Dave Allen, I'm on.

18 MR. KATZ: Okay, great.

19 DR. NETON: And Doug Thurber is here.

20 MR. KATZ: So, we can shift and go ahead 

21 and take on Hooker while we are waiting for Hans.

22 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Two big documents.
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1 DR. BEHLING: Hello.

2 MR. KATZ: Oh, there's Hans. Is that 

3 Hans?

4 DR. BEHLING: Yes, for some reason I 

5 was having problems with my phone. Just as I was 

6 about to come on it disconnected me for unknown 

7 reasons. I assume was being asked to discuss the 

8 second issue here of United Nuclear Corporation.

9 MR. KATZ: Exactly.

10 DR. BEHLING: Are we prepared to allow 

11 me to start?

12 MR. KATZ: Yes, please do, Hans.

13 DR. BEHLING: Okay, I'm very sorry, 

14 first of all --

15 MR. KATZ: No problem. No problem. 

16 It was just a minute pause.

17 Validity of the Coworker Model for United Nuclear 

18 Corporation

19 DR. BEHLING: Okay. Anyway, this is a 

20 quick overview. My discussion today is a June 2016 

21 memo that was issued by SC&A. And this most recent 

22 memo is linked to several documents that go back 
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1 all the way to 2009 and relate to the United Nuclear 

2 Corporation TBD, where, back in 2009, SC&A 

3 identified several findings, one of which was the 

4 issue of a coworker model for uranium inhalation. 

5 And that was identified as finding number 4.

6 And for the sake of clarity in 

7 discussing SC&A's most current memo, I feel it's 

8 prudent to briefly summarize some of the relevant 

9 issues that previously had been sent to the Work 

10 Group in the past but I think warrant a brief review 

11 just in order for everyone to get back onboard as 

12 to what the issues were.

13 In SC&A's original UNC, United Nuclear 

14 Corporation, Site Profile finding number 4 raised 

15 questions that involve the assignment of uranium 

16 inhalation quantities to unmonitored workers that 

17 were originally defined in Table D.1 in the 

18 Battelle-TBD-6001, Appendix D. And that 

19 particular document was subsequently reformatted 

20 in Tables 1 and 2 of DCAS-TKBS-0008 that was issued 

21 on March 21st, 2011.

22 So, if you want to go back to the data, 
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1 those are the two documents, and the most recent 

2 one involving the data subject to questions was in 

3 the 2011 DCAS document.

4 For the unmonitored workers, these 

5 Tables 1 and 2, daily inhalation of uranium values 

6 on behalf of unmonitored workers were presented for 

7 classifications that were defined for solubility 

8 type S and M; two, job categories that included 

9 three different categories: operations people, 

10 supervisors, and others; and lastly, for two 

11 specific time periods that were segregated by June 

12 of 1963. In other words, two time periods: prior 

13 to June 1963 and post-June 1963.

14 An important aspect, again, that I want 

15 to mention that will be brought up in a few minutes 

16 is that the recommended inhalation daily dose 

17 values represented the geometric means of the 

18 distribution, as well as the geometric standard 

19 deviation. And as part of SC&A's evaluation of 

20 these data, and this goes back to 2009, SC&A 

21 identified available urinalysis data for two 

22 workers, which is part of our normal approach to 
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1 our review, and that is actually trying to assess 

2 some of the actual data that are available and see 

3 if, in fact, the coworker model is at least 

4 consistent with the assessment involving a 

5 subsample of people that we were looking for.

6 MR. KATZ: Can I just halt you a second, 

7 Hans? There's a lot of clicking on the phone and 

8 it sounds like some sort of interference problem. 

9 I guess we could just start by everyone but Hans 

10 muting your phone and see if that takes that away. 

11 I don't know whether it is Hans' phone or someone 

12 else's.

13 DR. BEHLING: I don't know. As I said, 

14 I had some trouble when I first started.

15 MR. KATZ: That took care of it. That 

16 took care of it, thanks.

17 DR. BEHLING: Okay. Anyway, as I had 

18 mentioned, as part of our review of the TBD, we 

19 normally select a subset of data that would allow 

20 us to evaluate the coworker model. And in this 

21 case, I will say up-front, because it's important 

22 when we discuss it subsequently, that my selection 
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1 of the two workers that I was looking to assess in 

2 context with the coworker model and inhalation 

3 quantities that were being recommended involved 

4 two workers. And as I said, there were three 

5 categories that were assessed for potential 

6 assignment of inhalation quantities. And at the 

7 top of the list were operators, subsequently also 

8 supervisors, and then all others, in descending 

9 order.

10 And when I looked at the data that were 

11 available for assessment, I chose two operators. 

12 And also I looked at the data that were available 

13 among operators and chose two that were probably 

14 very high on the list. It wasn't a random sample. 

15 I screened the data for people who had urinalysis 

16 data. The data that were available were 

17 urinalysis data that were expressed in dpm alpha 

18 activity per liter of urine. 

19 Those were the original data that I had 

20 to look at, and I selected two operator workers and 

21 they were designated not by name but by code. The 

22 first operator was identified as AAA, Operator AAA, 
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1 and Operator BBB. So AAA and BBB were the two 

2 people that I looked at.

3 And what I then did, by means of the IMBA 

4 Expert computer code, I converted the actual data 

5 on behalf of these people and converted the urine 

6 data into what would be considered a daily 

7 inhalation value. And these were cited in the SC&A 

8 review of the TBD under section 34. And we defined 

9 values, as a result of that actual empirical data, 

10 that were considerably higher than the proposed 

11 recommended values that were being cited in the TBD 

12 for a coworker model.

13 And we presented this to the Work Group 

14 on several occasions. I think the most recent one 

15 was I think back in May of 2011, according to my 

16 records. And as a result of the discussions that 

17 took place with the Work Group, I think it was 

18 recommended that NIOSH actually take a look at the 

19 actual data that we presented and assess the data 

20 in terms of the validity, et cetera, et cetera, and 

21 also determine if, in fact, the data involving 

22 those two individuals were in fact incorporated 
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1 into the coworker model, meaning that the actual 

2 high values that were cited as part of the records 

3 for these individuals were part of the actual 

4 coworker model that was used to derive the 

5 geometric mean that were then identified for people 

6 who were not monitored and to be assigned.

7 And as a result of that request, the 

8 NIOSH has issued a White Paper. And I'm going to 

9 ask John Stiver if he can bring that up on the 

10 computer for people to see it. And this is the 

11 White Paper entitled "White Paper Addressing 

12 Issues on the Coworker Model for United Nuclear 

13 Corporation" and was issued in February 2014. And 

14 the author of that was Dr. Lara Hughes.

15 I don't know if Lara is available today 

16 to comment or not. I will discuss the paper or I 

17 can share that discussion with Lara, if she chooses 

18 to do so. Is Lara on the phone?

19 MR. KATZ: She's in the room, yes.

20 DR. HUGHES: I'm here, yeah.

21 DR. BEHLING: Oh, Lara, I don't know if 

22 you would prefer you discussing that paper. 
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1 Because the actual memo that I made reference to, 

2 and cited in the actual agenda for today, it's 

3 really in response to that particular White Paper 

4 that you wrote, Lara. And if you want to discuss 

5 it, I will be happy to turn it over to you, since 

6 you are the author. Or I can discuss it, whichever 

7 you want.

8 DR. HUGHES: I'll be happy to discuss 

9 it, although I do not have that White Paper in 

10 question in front of me. I'm not sure --

11 MR. STIVER: I can pull it up, Lara. 

12 Just a second.

13 DR. HUGHES: I have a memo, the review 

14 of the IMBA analysis that I prepared in July 2012, 

15 and that was specifically related to the IMBA runs 

16 of the two high exposed workers, AAA and BBB. And 

17 I think the crux was that we found essentially our 

18 values, when we used the bioassay of these workers 

19 and ran them through the model IMBA and calculated 

20 the daily intake rates, that the values were fairly 

21 similar. 

22 For one of the periods, there was a 
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1 discrepancy of about -- there was a factor of ten 

2 difference but that turned out to be a 

3 transcription error.

4 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, in fact, I have it 

5 on my computer now if the people here in the room, 

6 as well as on the phone, have access to that. The 

7 issue that I was hoping for you to discuss, or I 

8 will discuss it, are the results that you 

9 identified in Table 1 of your White Paper. And I 

10 see it on my computer right now. So I assume that 

11 other people in the room, as well as on the phone, 

12 have access to that.

13 DR. HUGHES: Okay.

14 MR. STIVER: I pulled it up on Live 

15 Meeting. So, that Table 1 is available to anybody 

16 who has Live Meeting.

17 DR. HUGHES: Is it the predicted 

18 chronic intakes of uranium?

19 MR. STIVER: This is your February 2014 

20 paper.

21 DR. HUGHES: I don't have it. I don't 

22 think I have --
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1 MR. STIVER: Do you have Live Meeting?

2 DR. HUGHES: No, I don't. I'm not 

3 connected.

4 DR. BEHLING: Well, in that case, Lara, 

5 if you don't mind, I will just briefly discuss the 

6 issues there.

7 DR. HUGHES: Okay.

8 DR. BEHLING: And I will focus 

9 principally on Table 1 because that's really the 

10 crux of the findings that you identified in your 

11 White Paper, and really is also the essential issue 

12 that we responded to in our recent memo that will 

13 be the last thing we will discuss here, briefly.

14 But one of the things -- and I won't go 

15 through the actual citation of all the issues that 

16 were raised -- but in your White Paper you also 

17 acknowledged the fact that in a Work Group meeting 

18 on September 7, 2012, NIOSH agreed during the 

19 discussion to change the guidance on the Site 

20 Profile, to use the 95th percentile value of the 

21 coworker model for doses during the gap period 

22 between '61 and '62. 
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1 That was cited in your report, but it 

2 was previously also acknowledged during the 

3 Working Group meeting so that the concession that 

4 was made in light of the issues that we raised in 

5 our review of the TBD, we went from the geometric 

6 mean of the values that you had derived earlier in 

7 the TBD to a 95th percentile value.

8 Then you also identified the two 

9 workers in question that I already mentioned, 

10 Worker AAA and BBB, and we had, in behalf of those 

11 individuals, 68 and 71 urine bioassay data points, 

12 respectively, that we were able to work with.

13 And what you did was actually duplicate 

14 what we had done previously in our initial review. 

15 And I think if we can go to Table 1 that is at the 

16 bottom of the page, John, you will see the outcome.

17 And I just want to briefly mention what 

18 you are looking at here. This portion of the 

19 table, the table actually continues on the next 

20 page but we won't -- John, go back to the original 

21 -- but this portion of the table is the pre-June 

22 1963 data, which is really critical because this 
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1 is where we had some very, very high exposure data 

2 or urine data for these two particular operators, 

3 AAA and BBB.

4 And what you see here in this table on 

5 the farthest side is the first row is NIOSH analysis 

6 of using the actual urine data as SC&A did, and then 

7 converting that to daily intakes. And so what you 

8 see here in Table 1 is that for Type S, the daily 

9 intake would have corresponded to 437,900 dpm per 

10 day for Operator A, based on the actual data that 

11 were available that we used and NIOSH used.

12 And below that, you see SC&A analysis 

13 that has a value of 42,670, and you realize that's 

14 a factor of ten. And we will come to that in a few 

15 minutes because that was actually a transcription 

16 error that we actually introduced in converting the 

17 value. We actually had a value that was, in 

18 essence, virtually identical, when, in fact, we 

19 looked back at the data, and I think NIOSH verified 

20 this, when we supported you with our own IMBA runs 

21 and you concluded the very same thing that we also 

22 concluded, that this represents a transcription 
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1 error. Because we had actually determined that 

2 the inhalation intake rates would have been 426,670 

3 and we dropped the number six there and reduced it 

4 by a factor of ten.

5 So, anyway, using the actual urine data 

6 that were available for Operator AAA, NIOSH had 

7 derived 437,900 dpm per day as an intake. And if 

8 I can correct for the transcriptional error, for 

9 SC&A, ours would have been 426,000, which is 

10 essentially very consistent with that number.

11 The Site Profile in the original tables 

12 would have recommended a geometric value of 12,590. 

13 And that, obviously, is a very, very much lower 

14 value than 437.

15 On the other hand, when the decision was 

16 made to actually adopt the 95th percentile value, 

17 that value would have been raised from 12,590 to 

18 89,277. And when you compared the actual 

19 empirical-derived value of 437,900 to the 95th 

20 percentile value, you realize that the ratio is 

21 still 4.9, which means we're actually -- the 95th 

22 percentile value that would be assigned is a factor 
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36

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1 of nearly five-fold lower. 

2 And the same thing applies to the Type 

3 M next to it where you see, in this case, that 

4 transcription error that we have been guilty of 

5 introducing in Type S was not translated or not 

6 transferred to Type M. We see that the NIOSH value 

7 of 13,803 is essentially identical to the SC&A of 

8 13,490.

9 And again, what you see here is the 

10 original geometric mean value of 872, and, of 

11 course, the revised recommendation to use the 95th 

12 percentile value of 6,183. And again, that is 

13 2.2-fold lower than the actual value that would 

14 have been derived had you used the actual empirical 

15 for the urine for Operator AAA.

16 And the same thing applies to Operator 

17 BBB. You can just look at this. I won't go 

18 through the numbers. And again, for Type S, SC&A 

19 in fact, if you had introduced a transcriptional 

20 error for the Type S, again we were off by a factor 

21 of ten. But when we corrected it, our numbers are 

22 pretty consistent with the numbers of 187,800, 
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1 because when we reran our own value, and I think 

2 NIOSH verified this when they looked at our data, 

3 our number would have been 208,880 dpm.

4 So, again, we were pretty consistent 

5 when we corrected for that transcriptional error 

6 but we also realized that we were still somewhat 

7 low, even at the 95th percentile value, which at 

8 89,277 is 2.1-fold lower than the empirically 

9 derived value that both NIOSH and SC&A derived that 

10 would have been almost 200,000 dpm per day.

11 Anyway, when we also raised the issue 

12 of -- we can go to the post-June 1963, and there 

13 you see values, again, that are in exactly reverse. 

14 Again, in this case, when NIOSH analyzed the data, 

15 in this case, the empirical data was adjusted for 

16 Operator AAA, a value of 6,445 dpm per day, when 

17 in fact the Site Profile geometric mean value would 

18 have been, essentially, the appropriate value. 

19 And as a result of the selection of the 

20 95th percentile value, we would assign for this 

21 individual 46,681, meaning we are probably, by 

22 assigning the 95th percentile value for an operator 
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1 as a coworker default value, we would be a factor 

2 of about eight higher than actually the empirical 

3 data would suggest.

4 So, post-June 1963, the coworker model 

5 would actually over-predict the inhalation 

6 quantities that would have been derived by the 

7 empirical method as NIOSH and SC&A identified. 

8 And the same thing applies to the Operator B, which 

9 is on the right-hand side, where, again, we are 

10 about a factor of approximately seven too high, as 

11 you see by the ratio value of 0.15.

12 So, again, there's a summary for the 

13 pre-June 1963 data. We would probably still 

14 underestimate the inhalation based on the 

15 empirical data for these two guys if we were to use 

16 the urine data. And for the post-, we would 

17 overestimate the actual inhalation dose by using 

18 the 95th percentile.

19 So, that's basically our review. And 

20 then there were secondary issues that I think Lara 

21 had identified. And that is, we had raised 

22 questions about whether or not the data that we had 
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1 used in behalf of these two individuals were, in 

2 fact, incorporated into the actual matrix of 

3 information that was used to derive the geometric 

4 mean and the 95th percentile. And that's in the 

5 last table. So, John, if you can just quickly go 

6 down the screen here.

7 Okay. Here you see a table, and those 

8 identify on the far left side the ten bioassay 

9 results from the data set that was used. And you 

10 will see on the second and third column of that 

11 table data that are in bold and data that are not. 

12 And the bold data involves those things that were 

13 not included. And so you see that some of the data 

14 that involved these two workers were, in fact, 

15 included in the coworker model and others are not.

16 And I think Lara explains why that could 

17 happen. I think several of the numbers, or the 

18 actual empirical data that were defined in behalf 

19 of these two workers, were considered outliers 

20 because they didn't make sense. They were very 

21 high and when you looked at the pre- and the 

22 post-date urinalysis data for those particular 
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1 issues, it seemed improbable that you could have 

2 such a high number. And they were considered, 

3 basically, an artifact or a contamination event.

4 And there were other issues that were 

5 identified as perhaps not necessarily being linked 

6 to an outlier, but, for reasons that were difficult 

7 to assess at that time, we don't know why some of 

8 the numbers were not necessarily included. But 

9 nevertheless, when they were included, the numbers 

10 really didn't change significantly in terms of the 

11 coworker model.

12 And so when we reviewed the White Paper 

13 that Lara had authored, and that brings us to the 

14 current memo that is really the subject of 

15 discussion for this, but, in essence, requires very 

16 little. So, John, if you could bring up the most 

17 recent memo that we submitted.

18 And much of this memo really reiterates 

19 what I've already talked about. It just 

20 summarizes the very fact that we started out with 

21 our original finding number 4. We submitted the 

22 data for review and discussion to the Work Group. 
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1 It identifies the fact that there were 

2 recommendations made for NIOSH to assess SC&A's 

3 number. And of course, we acknowledge in our 

4 document that we had made a transcriptional error 

5 in behalf of Type S for Coworker AAA and BBB that 

6 were corrected. 

7 And in essence, we also concur with 

8 Lara's assessment of the issue that perhaps the 

9 95th percentile value, in spite of the fact that 

10 it might not necessarily embrace the actual higher 

11 numbers that we would have derived, are probably 

12 appropriate for a coworker model, for a number of 

13 reasons.

14 One is that these two coworkers were 

15 exceptionally high-end workers. And as I have 

16 mentioned at the very beginning of my discussion, 

17 I had selected them for a reason. I wanted to see 

18 if, in fact, these data would correspond to a 

19 bounding value that were identified in the coworker 

20 model under the GM. And, of course, it didn't. It 

21 was way, way off. 

22 But as a result of the acceptance of the 
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1 95th percentile value, as opposed to the geometric 

2 mean, we're probably coming within a factor of five 

3 for AAA coworker and a factor of two for the BBB 

4 worker. 

5 And given the fact that the 95th 

6 percentile far also exceeds the expected intake for 

7 those two individuals post-June 1963, and given all 

8 the dose issues that Lara identified as perhaps 

9 outlier values that were inappropriate for use in 

10 assessing them, we, I guess, as a bottom line, we 

11 concur with Lara's assessment. And I think we can 

12 potentially accept the resolution of the 95th 

13 percentile value as a coworker model that can be 

14 used for an unmonitored worker, with the full 

15 understanding that, in the case of Coworker AAA and 

16 BBB, you would really, in essence, possibly still 

17 default to the actual empirical model as opposed 

18 to using a coworker model. 

19 And for people who may not be monitored, 

20 they are likely not to be the high-end people, such 

21 as the operators, for whom that data are available, 

22 we feel that the coworker model, as is currently 
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1 being proposed, using the 95th percentile value is 

2 probably an appropriate approach. And we 

3 recommend that resolve this issue by accepting that 

4 recommendation.

5 DR. NETON: NIOSH has nothing to add.

6 MR. KATZ: So you concur?

7 DR. NETON: We concur.

8 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yeah, a long 

9 discussion. So we have resolved the issue.

10 DR. NETON: We concur with SC&A's 

11 recommendation to close the issue.

12 DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. Just 

13 in listening to -- trying to sort of step back and 

14 get the big picture, when we have a circumstance 

15 where a coworker model has been developed with the 

16 data that is available, and you're doing a dose 

17 reconstruction using the coworker model -- this 

18 probably is self-evident, but when you do have real 

19 data for real people, the way Hans just described,

20 assuming that data were good and is rock-solid 

21 stuff that you can hang your hat on, you wouldn't 

22 use the coworker model. You would use the actual 
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1 data on the real people. Is that correct?

2 MR. KATZ: Correct.

3 DR. MAURO: And in this case you didn't 

4 use the real data for the real people because you 

5 didn't trust it.

6 DR. BEHLING: Well, actually, John, I 

7 think the way the TBD was rewritten in 2011, it does 

8 state that when real data are available, that they 

9 will have priority in use. This is, in essence, 

10 a coworker model that is earmarked for unmonitored 

11 workers. And any time you have real data, 

12 obviously, they should take precedent over a 

13 coworker model. And I think that's stated in the 

14 TBD.

15 DR. MAURO: Yeah. And that's the way 

16 I understood it also. But I do hear also, though, 

17 that for these particular workers, at least for 

18 that first time period, you didn't really trust the 

19 data. So, therefore, you didn't go with the data 

20 and you went with the 95th percentile, because 

21 there was something about the data for those two 

22 workers that didn't make sense.
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1 DR. NETON: No, John.

2 DR. HUGHES: No, that's not correct.

3 DR. MAURO: Okay, then if you could 

4 help me out a little bit.

5 DR. HUGHES: Well, for one thing, I 

6 don't think that these individuals are claimants, 

7 per se. So, I don't know if a dose reconstruction 

8 has been done. I would have to read up. 

9 In this case, if the dose 

10 reconstruction were to be done for these claimants, 

11 we would use the bioassay data. Now, there is 

12 always the issue, with the involvement with the 

13 coworker model, some values were omitted because 

14 these individuals had additional data that was 

15 found in the back of the document.

16 And I don't know the details because 

17 it's been a few years since I have looked at this. 

18 There were some spikes in there that were not 

19 explained by the data that were collected over 

20 subsequent days. These were individuals that 

21 received a good amount of intake and they have had 

22 a number of subsequent positive bioassay data. 
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1 So, there were some spikes that were not explained 

2 by the follow-up data. So, those I think were 

3 omitted, because in the report there were 

4 indications that they suspected the samples were 

5 contaminated. And I think that's a valid process.

6 DR. MAURO: Well, and you know, I bring 

7 this up only because it's one of judgment. And as 

8 we know, when we go through these kinds of processes 

9 it is appropriate for the dose reconstructor and 

10 the folks doing the work to use their judgment. 

11 And what I am hearing here is, if these were 

12 claimants and you were confronted with having to 

13 do a dose reconstruction for these claimants, you 

14 would have looked at the data the way you just 

15 described and you would have documented that. In 

16 this case, I'm still thinking out loud for myself, 

17 that, listen, yeah, we really have an option here. 

18 We can go with the real data that are much higher, 

19 eight times higher, four times higher, but we don't 

20 believe it.

21 And I think it's important that when 

22 that happens, when a certain degree of discretion 
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1 is used to bypass the coworker model, then it's 

2 essential that the rationale for that -- and I 

3 thought that was the case here, that there was a 

4 rationale why you didn't go that route, but what 

5 you are saying is you were really never confronted 

6 with that circumstance because these workers that 

7 Hans used in his test were not claimants.

8 DR. BEHLING: No, they're not, John. 

9 They were strictly identified in one of the 

10 documents that were cited for the information that 

11 would involve the development of the core group, 

12 where they had tables and tables of information 

13 involving urinalysis data that they have of 

14 different people, including operators. And when 

15 I screened those data sheets, I identified Coworker 

16 AAA and BBB because I realized, looking at the 

17 actual numbers that involve dpm per liter of urine 

18 that they were being assessed for, these turned out 

19 to be very high values.

20 And I chose that for a simple reason. 

21 I wanted to see if, in fact, the coworker model 

22 would be a bounding value. And it turned out not 
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1 to be the case. As I said, in the case of the data 

2 that were used that both NIOSH and SC&A ended up 

3 with for the AAA coworker, we ended up with a value 

4 over 400,000 dpm per day, which is obviously many, 

5 many times the geometric mean of the recommended 

6 value that was identified in the Site Profile. We 

7 talked about the difference between 437,900 dpm per 

8 day versus the GM value of 12,590. We are talking 

9 about 30-some-odd-fold difference.

10 But then when the concession was made 

11 to use the 95th percentile value, the 12,590 value 

12 translated for the Operator A to 89,277. And that 

13 still, however, was a factor of nearly 5, 4.9-fold 

14 lower than the empirical value derived from actual 

15 urine data.

16 But then again, Lara has explained that 

17 some of the values that were available -- and I 

18 didn't question, I didn't assess in terms of the 

19 validity, but apparently NIOSH did, and identified 

20 a couple high values that seemed inappropriate 

21 because of adjacent values before and after that 

22 would not allow that number to exist. And the 
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1 interpretation of that artifact was that it might 

2 be a contamination issue.

3 And without having gone through a lot 

4 of assessments, I will concur because I did look 

5 at the numbers that were being questioned, and I 

6 looked at the adjacent timeframes for other 

7 urinalysis, and that does suggest the likelihood 

8 is that they might have been a false high number.

9 DR. MAURO: No, I got it. I just 

10 wanted to --

11 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: So, we have 

12 resolved the issue, I think.

13 MEMBER FIELD: This is Bill. I have a 

14 question. For the false positives, the ones that 

15 were deemed contaminated, the adjacent values, 

16 they were for the same person, right?

17 DR. HUGHES: That's correct.

18 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yes.

19 MEMBER FIELD: Okay, I just wanted to 

20 clarify that.

21 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, if you look at the 

22 actual original data that I used -- and I think in 
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1 my review of the TBD, I actually have given an 

2 exhibit that identified Coworker A and Coworker B 

3 -- or Operator; I'm not saying Coworker -- Operator 

4 A and B, they actually have a subset of their actual 

5 exposures in the original review. 

6 So you can look at those and I think you 

7 can identify the adjacent values as appropriately 

8 assessed in behalf of each of those two workers and 

9 for that particular high value, and come to the 

10 conclusion that it doesn't look like it might be 

11 -- it could very well be an artifact.

12 MEMBER FIELD: Right, thanks.

13 DR. BEHLING: Anyway, I guess to sum 

14 things up, from my review of Lara's White Paper and 

15 reassessment of the data, at this point, I would 

16 certainly propose the recommendation to the 

17 Working Group to perhaps close this issue out and 

18 accept the coworker model as it's currently being 

19 proposed. For unmonitored worker, of course.

20 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: That seems 

21 reasonable. I think we got it. I mean, been a 

22 long time in the works here, but I think we finally 
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1 figured out what the differences were between the 

2 two and now it's reconciled. And I would certainly 

3 agree that we ought to close this out, that the 

4 coworker model and the 95th percentile process 

5 seems to work.

6 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right. And Dave, 

7 I agree. It was a very nice presentation and very 

8 clarifying.

9 MR. KATZ: So, for this one, Andy and 

10 group, I think we also need a presentation, because 

11 we have a session so you can close out the Site 

12 Profile review.

13 The only issue with this -- and again, 

14 I think, whoever prepares it for SC&A, just a little 

15 bit of backtracking so that people have context 

16 before you get to what you've closed out would be 

17 helpful for Andy.

18 But this is a little bit uncertain as 

19 to whether this will actually make it on the agenda, 

20 because it depends on what happens with a couple 

21 other SECs which would have priority for being 

22 addressed during the meeting.
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1 So if we could have that presentation 

2 prepared in case. And there's at least a 50-50 

3 shot that it will be used. But if not, it will be 

4 used in the next Board meeting or teleconference.

5 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: It would be nice to 

6 have it ready to go so we don't have to go back 

7 through this.

8 MR. KATZ: Absolutely. Absolutely, 

9 so that'll be a way to seal the information, at 

10 least, right, while it's fresh.

11 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yeah.

12 MR. KATZ: Thank you.

13 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay, any other 

14 comments by anyone? Thank you both.

15 MR. KATZ: Yeah, thank you. On to 

16 Hooker.

17 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay.

18 MR. KATZ: Is everyone okay? Does 

19 anyone need a break before we go on to Hooker?

20 MR. STIVER: I'd like to take a slight 

21 break.

22 MR. KATZ: Okay, so let's take a 
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1 five-minute break and then we will move on to 

2 Hooker.

3 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

4 went off the record at 9:58 a.m. and resumed at 

5 10:05 a.m.)

6 MR. KATZ: Alright. Okay, we're all 

7 back in the room, and we thought just we were going 

8 to take it out of order for a different reason 

9 before we got Hans back. So we thought we would 

10 discuss Hooker first since it's a shorter slog than 

11 NUMEC. And we have Dave on the phone and that will 

12 free Dave to go off and go to work.

13 DR. NETON: I think Bill can start.

14 SC&A Review of DCAS-TKBS-0009, Revision 2 for Hooker 

15 Electrochemical Company

16 MR. THURBER: Sure, Hooker. We 

17 prepared a review back in 2013 of Revision 1 to the 

18 Hooker TBD. And you'll recall that what happened 

19 at Hooker was they received so-called C-2 slag from 

20 Electro Metallurgical Company, which was down the 

21 road in Niagara Falls. And from another AEC 

22 project, they had some extra hydrochloric acid. 
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1 And so the objective was to treat this C-2 slag, 

2 which was a product of the bomb reduction process 

3 to produce uranium metal from uranium fluoride and 

4 magnesium, to take that slag from the bombs and to 

5 treat with hydrochloric acid and to upgrade the 

6 slag to increase its uranium content. 

7 So that was what happened, and this went 

8 on from, whenever, July 1944 through January 1946.

9 So NIOSH prepared a Revision 1 of the 

10 Technical Basis Document. And we reviewed it in 

11 2013. And at that time, we developed six findings. 

12 And subsequently, NIOSH updated the TBD to Revision 

13 2. And Ted Katz asked us in April of this year if 

14 we would review Revision 2 of the TBD to see whether 

15 the six findings that we had originally made in our 

16 review of Revision 1 of the TBD had been resolved. 

17 And so let me go through those six 

18 findings quickly and tell you where we think things 

19 stand.

20 And one thing I would add is that when 

21 we did our review of Revision 1 of the TBD we came 

22 across some new data which had not been considered 
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1 before which we felt had a fairly significant 

2 impact on the amount of exposure that the workers 

3 might have received, both in terms of the uranium 

4 content in the materials and the time that the 

5 processing took place, so that there were a couple 

6 of factors which would have affected the worker 

7 exposure that had not been considered when NIOSH 

8 did their original review.

9 So, anyways, our first finding was that 

10 we felt that NIOSH needed to review the assumptions 

11 regarding the composition of the slag and the 

12 concentration of the concentrate that was produced 

13 by acid leaching of the slag. And indeed, in 

14 Revision 2 to the TBD, NIOSH did take into account 

15 the fact that the slag concentration had been 

16 understated. And so they revised the slag 

17 concentration from something like less than one 

18 percent to 2.65 percent uranium. 

19 And based on our review, we felt that 

20 this was an appropriate adjustment based on the 

21 additional data that had been uncovered, and we 

22 were satisfied that this finding has been properly 
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1 addressed in Revision 2 of NIOSH's TBD.

2 The second finding had to do with the 

3 fact that we felt that the slag leaching process 

4 was understated -- I'm sorry, that the throughput 

5 through the system was understated by about a 

6 factor of five. It was originally assumed by NIOSH 

7 that ten tons a month of the slag would be 

8 processed, and we felt that that was -- based on 

9 this new information, we felt that that was a 

10 significant understatement by about a factor of 

11 five.

12 And in response to this finding, NIOSH 

13 looked at three production scenarios. And they 

14 felt that rather than ten tons per month, that a 

15 throughput of 89 tons per month better fit the new 

16 data. And again, we think that that is an 

17 appropriate adjustment and we are satisfied that 

18 that finding has been properly addressed by NIOSH.

19 The third finding, we felt that the 

20 internal exposure was understated because the 

21 exposure time was not properly addressed and that 

22 the amount of uranium in the concentrate was not 
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1 properly addressed. So, in their Revision 2, 

2 NIOSH upgraded the concentrate concentration 

3 significantly, and they decided that the slag 

4 handling time should be increased to 25 percent of 

5 the workday rather than five percent, which was 

6 originally assumed. And again, we felt that these 

7 findings were consistent with the new data that had 

8 been examined.

9 So, the first three findings, again, we 

10 felt were properly addressed by NIOSH. 

11 The fourth finding, we felt that the 

12 ingestion intake needed to be calculated in a 

13 manner that was consistent with the inhalation 

14 intake. And the issue was that actually the 

15 ingestion had actually not been included. And so 

16 we pointed that out and we think that's still an 

17 open issue, that NIOSH needs to address the 

18 ingestion. So, that is unresolved, from our 

19 perspective, at the time of review.

20 DR. NETON: We agree with that. We 

21 need to formally include that.

22 MR. THURBER: The fifth finding had to 
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1 do with -- it's a little be trivial, perhaps --

2 actually, maybe not. And that deals with the fact 

3 that the units of measure in some of the tables were 

4 confusingly stated. The text would refer to doses 

5 when the data was actually presented as exposures, 

6 or vice versa. For example, there would be a table 

7 that would be labeled "dose rates" but the 

8 information would be exposure rates, in terms of 

9 mR per hour. And we think that some cleanup is 

10 required there to be sure that the units are 

11 expressed consistently with the text and vice 

12 versa.

13 DR. NETON: Yeah, this is Jim. I think 

14 Dave Allen may have some comment on that. I'm not 

15 sure. Dave, are you there?

16 MR. ALLEN: Yeah, I'm here. I was just 

17 thinking we let Bill go through all the findings 

18 and then I could give our response, or however the 

19 group wants to do that.

20 DR. NETON: Either way. Well, we're 

21 through four. We are on five right now. Maybe 

22 five and six, I think, are somewhat related.
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1 MR. THURBER: Five and six are 

2 definitely related.

3 DR. NETON: Maybe Bill could go through 

4 six and then we could comment on five and six as 

5 a group.

6 MR. THURBER: Finding 6, again, 

7 referring to one of the tables in the NIOSH Revision 

8 2 of the TBD, it talked about the units of measure 

9 for the photon dose conversion factors. And

10 again, this was a question of whether these are 

11 exposure rates or dose rates. 

12 Well, that's sufficient. So, you 

13 know, as Jim said, five and six are kind of related. 

14 We think there is some cleanup required in the text 

15 and tables to clarify whether these are dose rates 

16 or exposure rates. And that summarizes it.

17 DR. NETON: Dave, do any of you want to 

18 chime in on that at all?

19 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Excuse me, Ted, 

20 before Dave -- this is Dave Kotelchuck. I have 

21 been on the line the whole time. My mute was on, 

22 it turns out. So, just for the record.
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1 MR. KATZ: Oh, okay. I didn't know we 

2 were missing you even.

3 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Oh, okay, 

4 wonderful. I thought you said something about 

5 Dave can go do something.

6 MR. KATZ: Oh no, that was a different 

7 Dave. That was Dave Allen.

8 (Laughter.)

9 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Alright, very 

10 good.

11 MR. KATZ: Sorry about that.

12 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Thank you. The 

13 other Dave, you should begin now. Sorry.

14 MR. ALLEN: Okay, this is Dave Allen. 

15 As Bill said, on findings 1, 2, and 3, I think SC&A 

16 is recommending closing. And just to point out, 

17 those three were changed as a result of the 

18 definitive information that Bill Thurber found. 

19 We actually looked at this issue in the previous 

20 review and SC&A agreed with our interpretation on 

21 the sparse information that we had, but when they 

22 found the definitive information, that kind of 
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1 contradicted some of the data that we did have and 

2 ended up changing the scenarios quite a bit. It 

3 definitely made it more robust. There's a whole 

4 math balance in the TBD now that clarifies 

5 everything exactly what happened, pretty much.

6 As far as finding 4, primarily that was 

7 the ingestion intake. And Bill notes that that 

8 should have been added and he is absolutely right. 

9 That was purely an oversight. I can tell you, as 

10 far as any dose reconstructions we've done by 

11 Revision 2, we have added in an ingestion intake, 

12 but it's not in the TBD and that needs to be added.

13 Then we get to finding number 5 --

14 actually, it's several different things. As Bill 

15 said, there were several cleanup things. There 

16 were some mixed units, et cetera. And we agree 

17 with, I want to say, everything he said. Yeah, it 

18 was mostly just some mixture of units that was 

19 incorrect. And we agree we need to clean those up 

20 at the same time we add the ingestion in there.

21 DR. NETON: I think I would also say, 

22 though, even though the units may have been 
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1 mislabeled, the dose reconstructions have been 

2 done correctly. Because there is a difference 

3 between if you use roentgen versus --

4 MR. THURBER: Right, particularly when 

5 you are looking at organ doses it's very important 

6 to make a distinction.

7 DR. NETON: I'm sorry, Dave. Go 

8 ahead.

9 MR. ALLEN: No, that's a good point. 

10 The units make a difference in some cases. In some 

11 cases, it doesn't, honestly. Whether you call it 

12 exposure or call it dose, on the other hand, nobody 

13 honestly pays very much attention to that. They 

14 pay attention to what the unit is. 

15 And that's what I wanted to point out 

16 with finding 6. We actually calculated the photon 

17 dose in mR per hour, or mR per day -- I can't 

18 remember what the time unit was in the table. And 

19 no such thing exists for beta, so we calculated that 

20 in millirem.

21 And technically, ICRP type is 

22 distinguished by calling one exposure and one dose, 
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1 but they also call a lot of other things "dose." 

2 They have HP(10),H*(10), air kerma, all kinds of 

3 things they call dose and they don't do a very good 

4 job of distinguishing them with a word.

5 The purpose of that was there were two 

6 lines in the table. One was in mR, one was in 

7 millirem. We decided to just say dose, instead of 

8 trying to confuse things by distinguishing dose 

9 from exposure. We put the units right next to the 

10 number to make sure there was no confusion.

11 That one just seems to me like the 

12 technically correct way of doing it is just going 

13 to confuse matters even more and it has never 

14 confused anybody yet. That one I would like to 

15 leave alone. The other stuff from finding 5, I 

16 would clean up.

17 And I am not married to that. I can 

18 clean it up. I just think it is a little more 

19 confusing if I do, as far as finding 6 goes.

20 And I think that was it. That's my 

21 responses to it.

22 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay, other 
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1 comments people have? So, when will the pen to 

2 paper --

3 DR. NETON: When will the TBD be 

4 revised?

5 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yeah, I think 

6 we've got it all resolved but I suppose it's in 

7 abeyance until we actually have a firm document in 

8 hand, I guess.

9 MR. KATZ: Right. Right, none of 

10 these are really in progress. They're really all 

11 in abeyance since we have agreement about all the 

12 details.

13 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yeah, all the 

14 issues were resolved, it's a time --

15 DR. NETON: None of these should take 

16 a lot of time. It's just a matter of getting the 

17 schedule. I don't know, Dave, do you have an idea? 

18 I mean, there's a lot of competing priorities these 

19 days. That's the only thing.

20 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Well, and you're 

21 continuing to process them, and you know it, so --

22 DR. NETON: And again, right now, it's 
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1 not affecting the dose reconstructions. They are 

2 being done correctly. It's just a matter of 

3 documenting it properly.

4 Dave, do you have any feel for a 

5 timeframe on this?

6 MR. ALLEN: Well, like you say, it's 

7 just a matter of priorities. I think I can push 

8 to try to get a draft out in a month, and then our 

9 review cycle often takes like a couple months 

10 because it's not going to be high on any of the 

11 review people's priorities either. But it might 

12 be three months or so at the earliest before we get 

13 this revised.

14 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay.

15 MR. KATZ: Okay, so -- oh, go ahead 

16 Bill.

17 MR. THURBER: I would just make one 

18 more comment. I don't mean to be didactic about 

19 this. But to me, dose and exposure are two 

20 different things. And Dave's comment, well, 

21 they're frequently intermixed, I have no argument 

22 with that, but it doesn't seem to me that that's 
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1 a good argument for proliferating confusion --

2 what's confusion in my mind.

3 DR. NETON: I hear you. Dave and I 

4 will talk about this. We'll make it right.

5 MR. KATZ: So, this is another one 

6 where we could have then a close-out of the Site 

7 Profile review. Again, whether we have time to 

8 actually address it at the upcoming Board meeting 

9 is questionable right now.

10 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yeah.

11 MR. KATZ: But you could probably close 

12 it out pretty quickly with a presentation on this.

13 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Dave, question. 

14 So, where does this reside during this period, over 

15 the next three months, or at the end of the three 

16 months? With the Board or with the Working Group?

17 MR. KATZ: No, it's not with the Board 

18 anymore, or really with the Working Group. It's 

19 in abeyance, so everything is agreed upon and NIOSH 

20 will put out, eventually, a revised TBD. And that 

21 will, whenever the Work Group is meeting on 

22 something else more substantive, they can then take 
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1 a nod that that was all put to bed.

2 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay, thank you.

3 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Is the TBD not 

4 posted?

5 MR. KATZ: These are available. Yes, 

6 I mean, they're posted on --

7 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Because what I'm 

8 wondering is if one at the top of that could just 

9 put a statement saying "see" -- I don't know if any 

10 public would look at it.

11 MR. KATZ: They wouldn't, in general.

12 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: I don't think so.

13 DR. NETON: The TBD is on our website.

14 MR. KATZ: I'm saying these details, 

15 the public is not going to really be cognizant of 

16 this detail and that it's being addressed, these 

17 findings from SC&A.

18 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yeah, okay.

19 MR. KATZ: You mean putting a notice 

20 out saying we've resolved all these issues?

21 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Just a line at the 

22 top of it, so when you went to it, it would say "see 
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1 the minutes of this" or something or other.

2 MR. KATZ: We've never done that. I 

3 don't know. 

4 DR. NETON: It's not been our practice. 

5 Usually, the people that follow individual Site 

6 Profiles kind of follow the meetings themselves.

7 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay, then we 

8 don't need -- because it doesn't seem to me -- I 

9 think we've got enough other things going on. I 

10 wouldn't want you to spend a lot of time rewriting 

11 this thing, as long as people wouldn't be looking 

12 for it.

13 MR. KATZ: Well, it has to get

14 rewritten because that's a matter of course.

15 DR. NETON: Yes, it will be revised. 

16 It's not affecting any dose reconstructions. So, 

17 I don't even suspect the PER is involved here.

18 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay.

19 DR. NETON: Because like I say, the 

20 ingestion has been done. It has just not been 

21 specifically described in the Site Profile. And 

22 the table with the units, that's a matter of, like 
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1 I said, being correct in the terminology.

2 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yeah.

3 MR. KATZ: So, anyway, since this is 

4 fresh, if we could just get another Site Profile 

5 review presentation to close it out. Whether we 

6 use it at this next Board meeting or not is 

7 questionable, but it's good to have.

8 DR. NETON: It might be good for the 

9 call after, you know, in-between.

10 MR. KATZ: Right, this is another one 

11 that we could do at the teleconference.

12 (Simultaneous speaking.)

13 MR. THURBER: If you are going to task 

14 SC&A to do this, I would hope that you and Dave could 

15 have sorted out your position on 6 before we have 

16 to do a whole rewrite.

17 DR. NETON: Sure, we will do that.

18 MR. KATZ: Yeah, check in with them as 

19 you prepare everything about that last part of it, 

20 that one bullet or whatever it ends up being.

21 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: How late are we 

22 planning to go on the second day?
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1 MR. KATZ: We finish at 1:00, and 

2 that's pretty much set in stone because it's 

3 noticed.

4 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay.

5 MR. KATZ: So, that's the problem. We 

6 don't really have room to expand.

7 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Well, yeah, I 

8 thought it was a short day.

9 MR. KATZ: Yeah, so that's the catch.

10 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: I'm trying to work 

11 my travel so that I can get home.

12 MR. KATZ: Right, 1:00 p.m. I believe 

13 we'll run until 1:00 p.m., though, unless some 

14 other things fall off the shelf. Right now, we're, 

15 in a sense, overbooked.

16 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay, that's 

17 Hooker. Any other comments, Members on the phone? 

18 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: I'm fine with what 

19 we have.

20 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay.

21 MEMBER FIELD: I think everything 

22 sounds good.
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1 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay. So, let's 

2 go back to the NUMEC White Paper. Is that okay?

3 DR. MAURO: This is John. I'd be glad 

4 to go ahead with NUMEC, but I think W.R. Grace may 

5 be able to be taken care of pretty quickly also, 

6 if Ron agrees. So that we could leave the home 

7 stretch for NUMEC, which may take a little bit more 

8 time than the others.

9 DR. NETON: Okay, I would need to give 

10 Tom Tomes a quick phone call to get him involved, 

11 but I'm okay with that.

12 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay, that's fine 

13 with me, too. Sure.

14 MR. KATZ: Is he waiting for you to call 

15 him?

16 DR. NETON: He's waiting for me to call 

17 him.

18 DR. POSTON: Ted?

19 MR. KATZ: Yes?

20 DR. POSTON: John Poston, I'm here.

21 MR. KATZ: Well, hi, John. This is --

22 okay, you're welcome. This is not your Work Group.
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1 DR. POSTON: I thought it was today.

2 MR. KATZ: You're welcome to hang in 

3 here if you want to listen, but this isn't one of 

4 your Work Groups. John, I think you are with us 

5 for Idaho -- for the INL Work Group, which is August 

6 2.

7 DR. POSTON: Oh.

8 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Everybody gets 

9 noticed for all of them and it's hard to remember 

10 which is yours.

11 MR. KATZ: Yeah, status notices.

12 (Simultaneous speaking.)

13 DR. POSTON: Well, I wasted a lot of 

14 time last night reading all this stuff. I found 

15 it interesting.

16 MR. KATZ: You will be well-prepared 

17 for the Board session.

18 DR. POSTON: Alright, bye.

19 MR. KATZ: Bye-bye, John.

20 DR. NETON: I got a hold of Tom Tomes. 

21 He is calling in. 

22 (Pause.)
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1 DR. NETON: Okay, Tom, are you on yet? 

2 He should be dialing in now.

3 MR. KATZ: Tom, have you joined us yet? 

4 Not yet.

5 DR. BUCHANAN: I could go ahead and 

6 give a recap for this, if you'd like.

7 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yeah. Should we 

8 start that?

9 MR. KATZ: Tom will be familiar enough, 

10 right? He doesn't need to catch all the recap.

11 DR. NETON: Yeah. I just -- does it 

12 beep when they dial in?

13 MR. KATZ: No, you don't hear it if you 

14 are already on. No, you don't.

15 DR. NETON: Well, yeah, go ahead.

16 MR. KATZ: Go ahead, Ron, that's fine. 

17 Why don't you start your recap?

18 W.R. Grace and Company in Erwin, Tennessee Update on 

19 Findings

20 DR. BUCHANAN: Okay, this is Ron 

21 Buchanan with SC&A. And W.R. Grace is a uranium, 

22 and some plutonium, processing plant in Tennessee 
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1 that did work for both AEC and commercial outfits. 

2 Complicates the issue somewhat.

3 It is now called NFS, Nuclear Fuel 

4 Services, and they are presently operating. They 

5 are downblending enriched uranium.

6 And so we did the Site Profile review 

7 in 2012, I think, three or four years ago, and we 

8 came up with seven findings. And finding 6 has 

9 been closed previously. It was on X-ray. That 

10 was closed, so that leaves the other findings. 

11 We had findings 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7. 

12 Now, the current status of those was that NIOSH was 

13 going to go back to NFS and request some additional 

14 information. This is mainly about when plutonium 

15 was and wasn't used at the facility for weapons 

16 purposes. And so they had requested additional 

17 information from NFS, and was waiting to receiving 

18 that to look at some more details on when the 

19 plutonium intake should be assigned and also any 

20 neutron dose associated with that.

21 Now, we did have finding 5, which was 

22 somewhat of a different issue, which I'll address 
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1 now. Finding 5 was SC&A brought up the fact that 

2 there was no information presented in the TBD 

3 concerning dosimetry calibration knowledge. And 

4 W.R. Grace outsourced their dosimetry to Nuclear 

5 Chicago in early years, in the '50s, and then they 

6 switched to Landauer in around 1961. 

7 And so we wanted to see if there was any 

8 additional information on dosimetry calibration at 

9 that time, since there had been none presented.

10 And we discussed this during our August 

11 25th Work Group meeting in 2015 last year. And 

12 what the Work Group wanted us to look and see if 

13 we could find any more information on that. NIOSH 

14 was going to look at some cases to see if the doses 

15 increased or decreased when they switched the 

16 dosimeter vendors in '61 and then re-reviewed that 

17 data. And SC&A was to contact NFS and Landauer to 

18 see about calibration.

19 And so that's essentially finding 5. 

20 I'll present the results of that now, and then I'll 

21 let NIOSH address the rest of the findings, since 

22 that was their action item when we had the last Work 
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1 Group meeting in August of 2015. 

2 Dosimetry calibration, we did contact 

3 NFS and Landauer to see if we could find some 

4 information on that. We could not find sensitive 

5 information. Landauer does state, they did state 

6 when I contacted them, that they did not report the 

7 different energy ranges. They did report 

8 non-penetrating if the surface dose was greater 

9 than five times the deep dose, which would indicate 

10 plutonium exposure. And that was the main 

11 information. 

12 We looked over some of their sheets and 

13 did not find where they reported different energy 

14 range or non-penetrating versus penetrating for 

15 normal exposures. So, that does substantiate 

16 that.

17 NIOSH did provide us four claimants 

18 which worked continuously and was matched 

19 continuously between '58 and '63 or '65, somewhere 

20 in that area. And we looked at their yearly doses 

21 and did not find a large change in those periods. 

22 The first part was Nuclear Chicago. The latter 
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1 part was Landauer. 

2 So, at this point, we do not find 

3 indication that there is further information 

4 available to substantiate any differences in 

5 calibration for external dosimetry. And so we 

6 recommend, at this point, that that issue be 

7 closed.

8 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Any comments, 

9 questions by people?

10 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Looking at the 

11 four cases, it certainly doesn't look like there 

12 is any change.

13 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: No.

14 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: I didn't sit and 

15 plot it but things look fairly consistent.

16 DR. NETON: Maybe Tom Tomes is on the 

17 phone by now.

18 MR. KATZ: Tom, are you on yet?

19 DR. NETON: Are you on mute, maybe?

20 MR. TOMES: Yes, I'm on the phone.

21 MR. KATZ: Yes, he is on.

22 DR. NETON: Did you have a chance to 
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1 hear any of what was just talked about?

2 MR. TOMES: I came in with the talk on 

3 the finding 5.

4 DR. NETON: Okay.

5 MR. TOMES: And I concur with 

6 everything that was said and the work that I did 

7 on it for the four cases. And like I said, there 

8 was no indication that there was any substantial 

9 difference in the results.

10 DR. NETON: Okay, so maybe you want to 

11 talk about the coworker approach, the coworker work 

12 that we are involved with now with the 

13 plutonium/uranium?

14 MR. TOMES: I missed what was expressed 

15 earlier but if you want, I can comment.

16 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: So, we are left 

17 with one through four. Six is closed and seven is 

18 still open.

19 MR. KATZ: So, the Work Group is 

20 closing five. Right?

21 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yes.

22 MR. TOMES: Well, I can go down where 
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1 we stand on these other findings.

2 DR. NETON: Yes, I think that would be 

3 good.

4 MR. TOMES: Finding 1 was concerning 

5 the accuracy and completeness of bioassay records 

6 that had not been assessed previously. NIOSH 

7 agreed that we should review the accuracy of 

8 plutonium bioassay and the uranium bioassay 

9 starting in 1991. Incidentally, that approach and 

10 we recently -- June, late June, recently completed 

11 that review of all the records. We have gone 

12 through all the claimant records. And then the 

13 results are still in review but our preliminary 

14 indication is that the uranium bioassay is 

15 sufficient from 1991 to present, which is what we 

16 were reviewing. The results of the plutonium are 

17 still in review. We have really no conclusion on 

18 that at this point.

19 But the plutonium was a little bit more 

20 complicated because point of assessment for 

21 bioassay went back into the mid- to late '60s. So, 

22 that is still in progress.
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1 Finding 2 was that the insufficient 

2 uranium intake data for this TBD for the 1958 to 

3 1970 era, which is the SEC period. NIOSH 

4 previously explained that POD intakes are bounding 

5 intakes for workers who do not have bioassay data, 

6 and it was based on a somewhat limited data and so 

7 we have provided the POD favorable intake.

8 The comment was that that single intake 

9 would not be appropriate for all personnel, not 

10 sufficiently accurate, necessarily. However, we 

11 presented our argument for why we consider that to 

12 be a bounding intake and we suggested that we will 

13 provide a graded approach for intakes for workers 

14 who were not exposed to as high levels. And that 

15 would be providing a TBD revision and I believe SC&A 

16 concurred that was a valid approach to take. And 

17 that was planned to be presented in a TBD revision. 

18 So, that is -- we have no updates on that at this 

19 point.

20 Finding 3 said that NIOSH set the 

21 plutonium dose for both the operational period and 

22 procedural period. This finding concerned 
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1 whether or not the plutonium was a covered 

2 activity. And we previously evaluated that and 

3 after quite a bit of work, we determined that we 

4 should cover those exposures. And that is under 

5 review. That is part -- that was rolled into the 

6 bioassay portion that was rolled into what we are 

7 assessing for finding 1, which is still under 

8 review for plutonium. And the methods are being 

9 developed and we have no conclusion for that yet.

10 Finding 4 is the lack of neutron dose 

11 examined. And our response to that previously was 

12 that we would evaluate neutron dose in association 

13 with plutonium activities, which is being 

14 considered for finding 3.

15 Finding 5, we just discussed that. 

16 Finding 6 was already closed.

17 Finding 7 was the lack of environmental 

18 intake. And our response to that was we were 

19 obtaining additional data from NFS to see if we need 

20 to address that issue and that data is under review. 

21 We are still determining whether the data we 

22 received from NFS earlier this year is sufficient 
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1 or whether we need to do another request to NFS. 

2 I have no conclusion on that finding at this point.

3 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay. So, did you 

4 get some information from them?

5 MR. TOMES: Yes, we got quite a bit of 

6 information, not much of it useful. Most of that 

7 information is information but not necessarily 

8 useful.

9 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yes. Yes, so they 

10 were responsive but not necessarily helpful.

11 MR. TOMES: Right. But it always 

12 comes up when you review these that we should go 

13 back and ask for more data. So, that is always one 

14 of the questions we consider. And that is where 

15 we are at right now is whether we have the method 

16 we could use with the available data.

17 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay.

18 MR. TOMES: We haven't really even 

19 talked to Jim about that because it is still in the 

20 early stage of being discussed.

21 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: What was the 

22 coworker model issue?
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1 DR. NETON: I thought there was a 

2 plutonium -- that was the plutonium issue, whether 

3 we could do coworker model. Wasn't that the issue?

4 MR. TOMES: Yes, that was -- I didn't 

5 specifically address the coworker model but that 

6 was part of the finding 3 and finding 1 assessment 

7 bioassay data. We don't have that model.

8 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: You don't know 

9 yet. Okay.

10 DR. BUCHANAN: This is Ron again. I 

11 would like to also add that there were secondary 

12 findings, A, B, C, and D, which are going to be 

13 addressed with changes in the TBD when it was 

14 revised.

15 MR. TOMES: I did not go through those 

16 and specifically make notes. I can --

17 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes, that's okay. I 

18 just wanted to advise the Work Group of that.

19 MR. TOMES: I think a couple of those 

20 are just clarifications in the TBD.

21 DR. BUCHANAN: Right.

22 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay. So, 
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1 basically --

2 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Ron, Dave. This 

3 is the first time I have seen secondary findings 

4 and I don't know what that category is, if you will. 

5 Could you explain it?

6 DR. BUCHANAN: Generally, we don't do 

7 it too much anymore. When we first were doing 

8 these, we would do primary findings which would 

9 perhaps impact the actual dose assigned. 

10 Secondary findings was like maybe incorrect 

11 reference to a table or incorrect reference to a 

12 reference, or something that would be -- maybe that 

13 needed change to clarify an item for a dose 

14 reconstructor.

15 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Well, would it be 

16 now handled mostly by calling it an observation?

17 MR. KATZ: Yes.

18 DR. BUCHANAN: Yes, we kind of have it 

19 as an observation now. We were using secondary 

20 findings previously.

21 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Good. Okay, 

22 thanks.
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1 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay, I don't --

2 MR. KATZ: So, all work in progress.

3 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yes, I don't think 

4 we have anything for the Board meeting.

5 MR. KATZ: No. No.

6 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: But it is good that 

7 we have closed out two now.

8 MR. KATZ: Yes, and it is good to be 

9 reminded as to where we are with this.

10 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: And it is good if 

11 you are looking at a coworker model that would be 

12 important to see, once you evaluate the data; do 

13 we have data to do that? If not, close it out a 

14 lot quicker.

15 Okay, with that, let's move on to the 

16 NUMEC White Paper.

17 NUMEC White Paper Discussion

18 DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. I would 

19 be glad to start. Or certainly, if NIOSH would 

20 prefer.

21 It is interesting and complex 
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1 arrangement. A great deal of work has been done 

2 and I also believe a great deal has been 

3 accomplished and a lot of things can be closed. 

4 But I think it is a bit of an unraveling process, 

5 given the nature of the history of the program. 

6 And I look to you folks on how would you 

7 like to start?

8 DR. HUGHES: If you would like to go to 

9 the issues, through the issues, John, and then we 

10 respond.

11 DR. MAURO: Okay.

12 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Let's just go 

13 front to back, yes.

14 DR. MAURO: Yes, I could start. And 

15 because of the nature of the work, I think it would 

16 be good for us to, Lara and Jim, and Dr. Strenge 

17 is also on line, all of whom contributed and there 

18 is a lot of interaction here. And I can't say that 

19 I have everything unraveled and clear as a bell in 

20 mind but I have a lot. I spent some time on it.

21 Let me set the table a little bit. When 

22 dealing with NUMEC, which is two sites, one is Parks 
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1 Township and one is the Apollo Site, both in 

2 Pennsylvania, near Apollo, Pennsylvania and they 

3 both did things that were quite a bit different. 

4 Apollo had a very, very broad range of activities 

5 involving uranium and many radionuclides, 

6 external/internal. Very complex. And while 

7 Parks Township was more oriented toward plutonium.

8 Both of them have SECs, which are quite 

9 extensive going from the Apollo from 1957 to 1983 

10 for initial operations period. And the Parks 

11 Township go from 1960 through around 1980, I 

12 believe. So, we have got SECs, very large SECs.

13 And so and we have an interesting set 

14 of circumstances regarding the operations period 

15 for both these sites and their SECs. The things 

16 that make things interesting here is that in 

17 listing the things that can't be reconstructed and

18 can be reconstructed becomes our first layer of 

19 ambiguity in my mind, to a certain degree. 

20 Clearly internal is a concern. 

21 External appears to be a concern but here is where 

22 I am a little unclear and we will get to that. So, 
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1 you can see why things start to get layered.

2 But let's start with -- oh, and another 

3 dimension, and maybe we can clean up real fast is 

4 besides operation periods for these two different 

5 facilities and their SECs and all the technical 

6 issues that are embedded in it, we also have a 

7 residual period that applies to both locations. 

8 And there were a number of issues that we discussed 

9 over the history of the program. And I would like 

10 to offer up right now to just quickly say that the 

11 residual issues that we had of concern were, simply 

12 put, dealing with what type of airborne activity 

13 would you use during the end of operations as your 

14 starting point for doing the residual activity as 

15 it goes away in time and what type of resuspension 

16 factor would you use to reconstruct those 

17 exposures.

18 And we had some discussion about the 

19 optimal approach and all of those discussions, of 

20 course, also took place at a time when we were 

21 talking about OTIB-70 and how to deal with residual 

22 period. In my opinion, from reading the entire 
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1 record as best I could over the past week or so, 

2 I believe that all issues related to the residual 

3 period of both sites have been resolved. And I can 

4 say and certainly please, anyone else on the line, 

5 given the complexity of the site, who have also been 

6 looking at this matter, but in my reading of the 

7 situation is that all of those issues have been 

8 resolved. So, that is off the table. And the only 

9 thing we really have to talk about are the 

10 complexities associated with the operations period 

11 for both Parks and Apollo.

12 Is there anyone on the line that feels, 

13 from looking at the record, that maybe I am 

14 oversimplifying? But that is my takeaway.

15 DR. LIPSZTEIN: I just want to comment 

16 John that the changes that were agreed upon, they 

17 are supposed to be included in the draft TBD 

18 Revision 3B that we didn't see.

19 DR. MAURO: Yes.

20 DR. LIPSZTEIN: So, we're agreed upon 

21 but we didn't see the change on the TBD itself.

22 DR. MAURO: Very good point. What I 
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1 just said goes for the record but we haven't 

2 actually seen them in the new TBD that I believe 

3 is planned for publication this August. And that 

4 has been very clear in an excellent overview of this 

5 very complex story, that Lara Hughes prepared in 

6 her report dated June 23, 2016, which is a great 

7 place to start. 

8 But that point is made, and yes, there 

9 is still material that needs to be -- all of these 

10 things that we are going to be talking about, a lot 

11 of that is going to be -- has been agreed upon, not 

12 all of it, and will be in this new TBD that will 

13 come out. But I believe you will see as we move 

14 through this, we can say that there is an awful lot 

15 that is in abeyance. And one of the areas, as Joyce 

16 brought forward, has to do with the residual 

17 period. 

18 So, we can say that we have agreed in 

19 principle and it is just a matter of awaiting 

20 formalization on that in the new TBD that is going 

21 to be issued according to the schedule, looks like 

22 an August date. I don't know is that August date 
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1 still a good date?

2 DR. NETON: As far as I know, yes.

3 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: It's coming up 

4 pretty quick.

5 DR. MAURO: Okay. It is pretty quick.

6 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: I hate to say it 

7 but the summer is rapidly --

8 DR. HUGHES: No, it's in the final 

9 review stages.

10 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay, good.

11 DR. MAURO: Now, let me just move the 

12 next layer, which is good, a big chunk that we just 

13 clear out. Now, we are going to talk a little bit 

14 about the definition of the SEC. And I am going 

15 to give you my brief take on some problems. They 

16 are not technical problems. They are clarity in 

17 terms of what is the definition of the Class, and 

18 what does it all mean?

19 Let me just start with let's say Parks 

20 Township. Okay? And the physician there is from 

21 1960 to 1980, a Class has been granted, an SEC has 

22 been granted and it is mainly because of the 
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1 inability to perform internal doses, reconstruct 

2 internal doses. But there are other issues 

3 related to what is called the CDP data, the Helgeson 

4 data and falsification that I think is in play here. 

5 And there is also a statement that indicates that 

6 you really -- you can't do neutron doses. This is 

7 my reading, now, please correct me if I am not 

8 getting this right. 

9 And you really can't build any type of 

10 coworker model for polonium and iridium. But one 

11 of the things that sort of left me a little bit 

12 disoriented with regard to -- now we are talking 

13 Parks, is that it appears that -- and you notice 

14 that I haven't actually gotten into the 21 issues 

15 that Lara summarized. I'm starting off more up in 

16 the stratosphere.

17 There seems to be a little bit of 

18 uncertainty on my part of the ability to do external 

19 dose, whether or not -- and maybe here's a place 

20 where we may have some disagreement. Namely -- and 

21 by the way, a lot of this is already, unfortunately 

22 it is a deja vu all over again, I realize this. We 
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1 talked a lot about this back a year about it at one 

2 of the Work Group meetings where what we have is 

3 an SEC is being granted, primarily because of 

4 internal but there seems to be some question 

5 regarding external. 

6 Stay with me for a minute on this now. 

7 Envision, we have got workers during the time 

8 period were covered by the SEC. They granted their 

9 compensation under the SEC but then of course, you 

10 have a large number of workers who are not covered 

11 because of the types of cancers, including ET1, 

12 ET2, prostate, skin, and perhaps others and they 

13 are denied.

14 And here is where things get 

15 interesting. We are talking right now Parks but 

16 a lot of what I am saying also has certain 

17 applicability to Apollo. But now along comes a 

18 bunch of workers who are not going to be compensated 

19 because of the type of cancer they have. And one 

20 of the things that we were very complimentary about 

21 in the Site Profile is we said listen, we are going 

22 to do the best we can to reconstruct, do partial 
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1 dose reconstructions for those workers who are not 

2 compensated because of the type of cancer. 

3 And one of the things that is different 

4 here, and this was mentioned in our review, and we 

5 know that is -- we are starting -- you do the best 

6 you can when you have data for that person. And 

7 you try to do the best you can to reconstruct the 

8 dose to the organ of interest. But in this report, 

9 you actually take it a step further and you start 

10 to describe in some considerable detail how you are 

11 going to do that. And that is, in my opinion, 

12 something new because think of it like this: in the 

13 past the position of NIOSH was is listen, we are 

14 always going to use data for that worker if we can, 

15 and do the best we can to assign some dose to the 

16 extent that we could. And so it stops at that. 

17 But in this case, you want the next degree, which 

18 is a good thing, saying this is how we are going 

19 to do it. And in fact a lot of how you are going 

20 to do it, it is made reference to in Lara's report 

21 on June 23rd, but there is a lot of detail regarding 

22 how are you going to do it in the report by Dennis 
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1 Strenge and Jim dated May 14, 2015. 

2 So, what we have here is a circumstance 

3 that says we are going to -- we have procedures, 

4 we have approaches, assumptions, methods we are 

5 going to use to reconstruct the doses, partial dose 

6 reconstructions and this is how we are going to do 

7 it.

8 And therein is the start of where some 

9 of the issues lie and they fall into two different 

10 categories, when you say yes, we are going to do 

11 the best we can. One category is okay, here we have 

12 a worker and we are going to -- we have some data 

13 and for him or her, we are going to do this, this, 

14 and this to reconstruct that dose. 

15 And so we have some questions regarding 

16 that and we have folks on the line, including Joe 

17 Zlotnicki and Joyce who can speak to those 

18 particular matters, the approach that is planned; 

19 in one case external and the other case, internal.

20 And then we have another category that 

21 has to deal with coworker models. Now we all know 

22 that coworker models are never used to reconstruct 
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1 doses for these people. In other words, that is 

2 the reason there is an SEC -- you can't build a 

3 coworker model. But you are going to see as we move 

4 through this process that there are words and 

5 discussions and material, including in Lara's 

6 write-up, that leave you with the impression that 

7 maybe a coworker model will be built and used. 

8 And the place where that happens and it 

9 has to do with what I call finding 14, dealing with 

10 neutron-to-photon ratios. And there is some 

11 discussion on what those ratios would be and they 

12 reference to, in Lara's June 23, 2016 report, and 

13 there is considerable detail on that matter in the 

14 report by Dennis Strenge and Jim Neton dealing with 

15 these matters. And there are issues of that nature 

16 that leave you with this, and this is very 

17 interesting. 

18 We are going to build a coworker -- we 

19 are going to use neutron-to-photon ratios to 

20 reconstruct external doses to neutrons. And there 

21 is ambiguity of whether or not that, in some of the 

22 words, whether or not you are claiming you can or 
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1 you cannot reconstruct external doses. I get the 

2 sense that the answer is no, you can't, but you are 

3 going to do the best you can. And then you run into 

4 the circumstance where when you -- and that is okay.

5 Certainly if you have some external 

6 data, let's say photon data, and yes, we are going 

7 to do the best we can to assign some photon dose 

8 to these uncovered SEC people. But then I see some 

9 words that say not only that, we are going to do 

10 the best we can to give them some neutron dose based 

11 on neutron-to-photon ratios. 

12 And, in my opinion, unless anyone 

13 disagrees, by definition, that is a coworker model. 

14 And all of a sudden, we have got this unusual 

15 circumstance where a coworker model is going to be 

16 used to reconstruct a neutron dose for a worker and, 

17 in my mind, by definition, there has to be a 

18 coworker model.

19 So, what I just laid out now, what I 

20 would call a macro level, the big picture of what 

21 we are trying to unravel. And with that, and I just 

22 communicated to you my understanding of the 
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1 material that I have read without actually going 

2 into finding 1, finding 2, finding 3. I think we 

3 need to do that and close them out or find out where 

4 they come to bear. But you can see by the story 

5 I just told why I felt that this was a very layered, 

6 complex, almost like a Rubik's Cube that we are 

7 trying to unravel a little bit.

8 And now everyone on the phone who has 

9 been close to this, did I accurately represent the 

10 nuances and dimensions, the various facets that we 

11 have to come to grips with on this particular site?

12 MR. BARTON: John, this is Bob. Yes, 

13 I think that is a pretty good 10,000-foot view, so 

14 to speak. I think a lot of what you talked about, 

15 it is a complex site with several issues, 

16 originally 21. I think a lot is going to come out 

17 as we sort of work our way through that anyway. So, 

18 it was a good setup.

19 DR. MAURO: Thank you. I don't know if 

20 NIOSH, do you think I did a disservice here or is 

21 that a fairly good representation of the knots we 

22 are going to try to unravel?
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1 DR. NETON: This is Jim. I don't --

2 I'm not sure where you are going with this. I'm 

3 looking at the paper that Lara put out and I thought 

4 it was pretty clear that we decided that we are not 

5 going to have a coworker model for external.

6 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Right.

7 DR. NETON: Whether we have a 

8 neutron/photon ratio that applies to monitored 

9 workers that have badge results, that is a 

10 different issue.

11 DR. MAURO: Okay, that is important 

12 because I didn't -- that is why I raised the 

13 question. See, I hear in neutron/photon, I say 

14 okay, you have got some photon data, now I want to 

15 assign neutron data. You don't have neutron data 

16 for this guy and that means you have no other choice 

17 but to go find some neutron data ratios, which is, 

18 by definition in my mind, a coworker model.

19 Now, that is my definition. I may be 

20 wrong. So, and then all of a sudden, you introduce 

21 a coworker model into the SEC world, which is, in 

22 my mind, a no-no.
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1 DR. NETON: I guess maybe Lara can 

2 remember more of what we described on the 

3 neutron/photon ratios.

4 DR. HUGHES: The neutron/photon ratio 

5 here, it is a model. It is not -- we would not 

6 consider it typically a coworker model. It is 

7 based on -- and I think Dennis might be able to 

8 elaborate more but it is based on measurements that 

9 were taken, like paired measurements. 

10 And in this case, it is fairly 

11 rudimentary. Typically, we would like it to be 

12 more robust, as you commented in your issues 

13 yourself. But it is all we can do. It is all we 

14 have and we use it for the fewer -- there is 

15 relatively few externally monitored workers but in 

16 the case where we have data for these workers, we 

17 will apply the data during dose reconstruction. 

18 It doesn't mean we can do a coworker 

19 model. Also it doesn't mean we can assign this 

20 model to an unmonitored person. It is basically 

21 the best we can do with the data that we have, that 

22 we have gotten from the site. There is various 
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1 issues, mostly are internal, there are some 

2 external that we feel that we cannot do a coworker 

3 model. And we certainly have numerous reasons why 

4 the site has become an SEC. 

5 But again, for the people that were 

6 unmonitored that do not fall under the SEC, we try 

7 to assign the doses as best as we can with what we 

8 have and that is what we are looking at here, 

9 basically.

10 DR. MAURO: And you know what? I agree 

11 completely. And I think that I bring this 

12 neutron/photon ratio up specifically because it 

13 struck me that that has to be, by definition, a 

14 coworker model. 

15 Think about it. You may not agree with 

16 that but in my mind, there is no escaping it that 

17 is you are somehow using an understanding of the 

18 relationship between photon and neutron exposures 

19 that you have data for, for the site in general and 

20 the operations that took place. Or you actually 

21 have a record of some exposures for other workers 

22 where you can say it looks like we have got this 
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1 type of neutron/photon relationship. 

2 And in my mind, that is a coworker model 

3 which puts NIOSH in an interesting situation. It 

4 means that hold the presses, Jack; maybe we can 

5 reconstruct neutron doses. And all of a sudden, 

6 it is not one of the reasons why the SEC is being 

7 granted.

8 So, I find that as being -- puts me in 

9 a place that I'm off balance. I said well, if you 

10 could build a coworker model, well, then that is

11 no longer an SEC issue.

12 DR. NETON: Maybe we could hear a 

13 little more about them because I have forgotten the 

14 exact nature of how neutron/photon ratio was being 

15 developed.

16 DR. MAURO: Yes, well, I bring that up 

17 because --

18 DR. NETON: I'm not sure I share your 

19 confusion, John. I mean I would like to hear more.

20 DR. MAURO: Yes, well, we will get 

21 there. I wanted to give this introduction because 

22 it has -- you know and operate at a higher level 
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1 before we get down to deal with the specifics. And 

2 certainly we are now at a point where we could deal 

3 with the specifics, given this what I consider 

4 overview of my take on --

5 DR. NETON: I mean I don't understand 

6 why you confuse it. If we say that we could 

7 reconstruct neutron exposures for workers who were 

8 monitored for photons, that that implies that we 

9 could do coworker models for unmonitored workers. 

10 I don't understand what that is a confusing issue.

11 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: I thought was all 

12 we -- and I think that if we have data, you can 

13 expand that data for that person.

14 MR. STIVER: Well, I think the kind of 

15 nuance here is that you have monitored workers with 

16 a monitored for photons only.

17 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yes.

18 MR. STIVER: And here you have this 

19 other type of exposure which kind of becomes like 

20 a coworker model in that you don't have monitoring 

21 data for neutrons for these particular people but 

22 we have got this other set over here that we can 
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1 use to develop --

2 DR. NETON: Who were monitored, 

3 though.

4 MR. STIVER: Who were monitored but 

5 they weren't monitored for neutrons. So, it is 

6 kind of inconsistent.

7 (Simultaneous speaking.)

8 DR. NETON: So that is why you can 

9 reconstruct external photon doses for people who 

10 weren't monitored. I don't know how that 

11 logically follows. That is what you are implying.

12 MR. STIVER: You are trying to -- you 

13 are reconstructing the neutron doses for those who 

14 weren't monitored for neutrons.

15 MR. SMITH: This is Matt Smith with 

16 ORAU Team. I know we can get into it deeper, as 

17 we go on but just real quick. You know from the 

18 report in 2015 that Dennis put together, you know 

19 when you take a look at the 0.34 ratio that is cited, 

20 that is based on data, a study in fact that was 

21 performed in 1975, once TLDs came into use.

22 So, it is not the kind of data that you 
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1 would use in a coworker study by any means. It is, 

2 again, a limited study but it what we had to work 

3 with, what we weren't able to get by doing more 

4 requests from the site for data. And it was that 

5 study that led to the development of that 

6 particular ratio. 

7 In addition in that study, there were 

8 some six dosimetry plates around the facility. 

9 So, we have got neutron and photon data from six 

10 TLD positions.

11 You know nowhere are we going towards 

12 a coworker model where we have tried to ascertain 

13 neutron dose from some large set of data of Energy 

14 Employee workers.

15 MR. STIVER: Okay, that makes more 

16 sense.

17 MR. SMITH: What we are trying to do 

18 here, as has been stated repeatedly already, is we 

19 are doing the best approach we can with data that 

20 exists in the post-NTA era.

21 DR. MAURO: I think this is important 

22 because I don't think we have seen this -- I haven't 
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1 seen this before. That is, when I hear that we are 

2 going to do the best we can to assign doses for an 

3 uncovered worker for an SEC, what always means is 

4 yup, we happen to have some numbers for him and it 

5 is unique to that person and we are going to do the 

6 best we can. Great. And not only that, you 

7 actually describe in some detail how you are going 

8 to do that, which is even better.

9 But then when I saw the neutron/photon, 

10 it says wait a minute, that is not measurements for 

11 this guy. This is some other information you have 

12 and you are saying that there are certain other 

13 types of information like these measures you have 

14 just mentioned, which you can use for that guy. 

15 And that doesn't mean you are building a coworker 

16 model. That means you are just taking advantage 

17 of information you happen to have at the site that 

18 will allow you, at least in the case of that one 

19 person, to be able to reconstruct his doses. And 

20 it doesn't mean that any worker that you have 

21 external doses -- by the way, am I correct that it 

22 is your position that the SEC has been granted, in 
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1 part, because you cannot reconstruct external 

2 doses in the case of both Apollo and NUMEC?

3 DR. NETON: They are two separate 

4 issues, John. I think Parks was added as an 83.14, 

5 which means that we stopped evaluating the 

6 infeasibility as soon as one was identified. 

7 Which I think in the case of Parks was thorium, I 

8 don't remember but it was an internal issue.

9 And I think if you look at Section 6.2 

10 of that Evaluation Report, it said because we 

11 identified infeasibility, we didn't evaluate 

12 external completely at the time. That is very 

13 standard language for an 83.14. And then when we 

14 back and evaluated it further, the decision was 

15 made that external was also infeasible.

16 DR. MAURO: Okay and I read that.

17 DR. NETON: Now, I think the other one, 

18 I think we did say an external was infeasible at 

19 Apollo.

20 DR. MAURO: Yes, that's correct.

21 DR. NETON: And if you think about, 

22 these are sister facilities that shared common 
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1 dosimetry programs. That is another nuance here 

2 that we need to think about is it was one health 

3 physics that covered both facilities.

4 DR. MAURO: Right. And you know what? 

5 I would like to go into it a little bit more before 

6 we go vertical. Let's talk about the idea of a 

7 person that is not covered because of the nature 

8 of his cancer. He works at NUMEC. And you are 

9 going to do the best you can to reconstruct his 

10 internal doses -- his doses. And what I just 

11 heard, because it is an 83.14, this is where I think 

12 I need some help, because it is an 83.14, you agree 

13 well, we really can't reconstruct this guy's doses 

14 because of a thorium. I think thorium was one of 

15 the big kickers here. We can't do his internal. 

16 But then I say to myself, okay. So, as a result, 

17 an SEC is granted based on 83.14 because you can't 

18 reconstruct internal doses to thorium.

19 And then you have got all these other 

20 people out there who are not going to be compensated 

21 because they are not covered. But all of a sudden 

22 you tell me but hold it. Maybe we can reconstruct 
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1 his external doses and maybe we can even build a 

2 coworker model for all of the other workers that 

3 are not going to be compensated but we can assign 

4 doses to them. Not only can we assign doses to them 

5 because we have some data for those people but it 

6 is possible, if you look at the data, and here is 

7 where we are going to have -- this is one of the 

8 places where we are going to have a difference of 

9 opinion that needs to be aired out. If you could 

10 build a coworker model, in other words, I can't see 

11 just walking away and say well, that is the end of 

12 the story. Now, hold it. You have got some solid 

13 data out there on external dosimetry, let's say it 

14 is for Parks and if you look at the data, you say 

15 you know we could actually build a coworker model.

16 MR. KATZ: John, I mean I think you 

17 misheard something. Because after -- they didn't 

18 base 83.14 on external. That's true. You got 

19 that part right. But afterwards, they concluded 

20 it's true they cannot do external even for that 

21 site.

22 DR. NETON: It's pretty clear in the 
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1 write-up that Lara put together on page 16, 17, 18, 

2 there is a fairly good discussion about why we feel 

3 external coworker models aren't feasible.

4 MR. KATZ: Are not feasible.

5 DR. NETON: And maybe that should be the 

6 basis of discussion here, not that -- the path to 

7 go in that, which is we didn't chime in on external 

8 during an 83.14 but we have decided now that we can. 

9 That was the instructions we got from the last 

10 Working Group meeting.

11 DR. MAURO: I think that may be the 

12 technical point, one of the -- we are going to have 

13 two types of technical issues that we are going to 

14 deal with. We have a number of comments made by 

15 Joe Zlotnicki and Joyce on those methods regarding 

16 external/internal, where you have data for people 

17 and how are you going to do their reconstruction. 

18 And then we have this other issue that we just 

19 talked about, whereby I think we have a bit of a 

20 disagreement on whether you can build a coworker 

21 model or not for external exposure. So, it becomes 

22 very clean. I'm not saying who is right and wrong 
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1 here. I'm just saying but these are the things 

2 that I think are important to talk about on this 

3 subject and these are, I also believe, to be 

4 somewhat precedent setting and that we really have 

5 never gone down this road.

6 In a funny sort of way, it is happening 

7 because you guys went the extra yard and tried to 

8 do a very good job on NUMEC by getting into in 

9 considerable detail how are you going to do the 

10 doses for the people who are not covered by the SEC, 

11 something that you don't often see.

12 So, it is interesting that the very 

13 thing that was well-intended actually is causing 

14 areas where we are going to have to discuss and 

15 resolve matters.

16 MR. STIVER: John? This is Stiver. 

17 Let me just cut in for a second.

18 If you look in Lara's report, page 15, 

19 the last seven lines kind of lays out a summary of 

20 why they are not able to do external coworker 

21 models. They said the main reason for --

22 I could just read it into the record. 
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1 The main reasons for the infeasibility conclusion

2 are the available gaps and the inability to 

3 separate out the data by site and the work area job 

4 title. In some cases, the external dosimetry 

5 reports for the contractors, such as Landauer, list 

6 the facility but that is not always the case. It 

7 seems that this practice was taken up sometime in 

8 the 1970s but then stopped again.

9 It is, therefore, not possible to 

10 separate out the data by site. There is also the 

11 factor that many of the workers who may have been 

12 routinely in radiation areas were not monitored by 

13 external dosimetry. Therefore, the available 

14 data may not be representative of the exposure 

15 scenarios.

16 So, in my mind, that kind of lays out 

17 in general terms the reason for the infeasibility.

18 DR. NETON: That's good. That is our

19 position. And maybe we should be speaking from 

20 that point. If you disagree with that, I would be 

21 interested to hear why you feel that those are not 

22 valid reasons.
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1 DR. MAURO: I'm going to put Bob Barton 

2 on the spot. Bob, when you and I spoke about this

3 and you had a chance to look at that very issue, 

4 we were talking a bit about well, is that true. In 

5 other words, are they in a position where they 

6 really can't do it? And the sense was that well 

7 wait a minute, I'm not ready to give up on that yet.

8 However, and we have all been looking 

9 at this issue now for getting ready for this meeting 

10 and I know we have had these kinds of conversations 

11 internally. 

12 I don't know. Bob Barton, where are 

13 you right now on that? Do you agree with that 

14 statement we just heard or do you want to talk a 

15 little bit more about that?

16 MR. BARTON: Sure, John. And what was 

17 alluded to, a lot of those points that John Stiver 

18 just read into the record that are in Lara's report 

19 were things that were discussed in general terms 

20 at the last meeting. And as Jim Neton said, they 

21 were given the task to go ahead and say alright, 

22 we have to look at these areas of, I guess, pathways 
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1 to cull them, which pretty much will go to the 

2 external dose and possibly uranium and say, do we 

3 have the data? Do we have the ability to construct 

4 a coworker model within the sufficient accuracy 

5 guidelines and the implementation guide that has 

6 been developed?

7 And I guess where it is a bit strange 

8 for me, I guess we are expecting more of a sort of 

9 quantitative assessment. I mean these are all 

10 very generally good terms but how many dosimeters 

11 do we actually have? How many workers do we have 

12 monitored? In other words the mention that 

13 sometimes Landauer would report the actual site the 

14 person was at. How many of those do we have by year 

15 so that we can say definitively? Because I mean 

16 we don't really have anything to go on because we 

17 have not dove into the records.

18 So, I guess it would be helpful, at 

19 least from my perspective to maybe hear a bit more 

20 detail, if it exists, or some sort of quantitative 

21 indicator that says yes, we all agree that given 

22 the guidelines for how you construct coworker 
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1 models at this stage of the program, that it is in 

2 fact impossible. And so while you are not going 

3 to revise the SEC, it is important to know that for 

4 an unmonitored worker, we just don't have any 

5 avenues to say, for instance, assign a coworker 

6 external dose.

7 DR. NETON: I'm not sure how you become 

8 -- if you don't have quantitative information to 

9 build a coworker model, I don't know how you would 

10 be quantitative about describing how you can't do 

11 it. I'm missing something here, Bob.

12 MR. BARTON: I mean in the Parks SEC 

13 report, it says that external data exists from what 

14 was it 1961 until whenever. So, there is some 

15 data. We don't know how much.

16 So, I guess what we were hoping for was, 

17 the number of say badges you have by year.

18 DR. NETON: Well, that wouldn't help 

19 anything if you don't know the data completely. 

20 See, we don't know what the ultimate data set is. 

21 Right? I mean it is a data completeness problem. 

22 You have a lot of -- you have badges, sure. But 
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1 do you have them all?

2 MR. BARTON: We always have that 

3 problem, though, don't we?

4 DR. NETON: Well, we go through this in 

5 painstaking detail, coworker models. We try to 

6 say okay -- we are doing this at Savannah River 

7 right now. What percentage of the data do we have? 

8 Do we look at monthly reports and say okay, they 

9 monitor 100 people every month and do we have 100 

10 badges every month? All the kind of happiness that 

11 we do with all these things. We have none of that 

12 here. So, I'm not sure what you are asking for.

13 I mean if you can't do it, you can't do 

14 it.

15 MR. STIVER: This last sentence here 

16 that you have people going into radiation areas 

17 that were monitored. It could have been high 

18 exposure areas. You must have some, like a 

19 claimant review that would lead you to expected --

20 DR. NETON: There is indications here 

21 when we talk about people that have internal 

22 monitoring results but no external data. I mean 
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1 so there is indications of I'll call it chinks in 

2 the armor, if you will, or inconsistencies that are 

3 there. I don't know. I'm not sure how 

4 quantitative you can get if you don't have a 

5 quantitative way to evaluate it.

6 MR. BARTON: Well, I guess my only 

7 point was that on our side of the fence, we really 

8 have no idea to what extent what data you actually 

9 have so we are kind of going blind in here. 

10 You know, like I said, it might be 

11 helpful just to see how many people were monitored 

12 but you might have the completeness issue.

13 DR. HUGHES: Well, we have Table 1 in 

14 the White Paper that has kind of a rough outline 

15 on the number of external dosimetry results per 

16 year. That kind of gives you an indication how 

17 many data points we have. It also shows you that 

18 for some years we have none, such as 19 -- hold on. 

19 There are some years where we have very few data 

20 points. That was one of the issues, that 

21 externally we are looking at these gaps that we 

22 haven't been able to resolve.
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1 We also, when we look at individual dose 

2 reports from the site for claimants, there is often 

3 you see that were not monitored externally, even 

4 they were monitored internally. And from the 

5 internal data, you get a pretty clear picture that 

6 they did work in a radiation area. There is 

7 indications, and I think it is listed in the TBD,

8 that the site also relied on area monitoring to 

9 control their radiation fields, which is not a good 

10 -- it would not show up in their records. Let's 

11 say it like that.

12 So, there is definitely issues that we 

13 feel like the data is not complete. We do not 

14 believe that everybody who needed to be monitored 

15 was monitored, that the data set that we have does 

16 not include like highly exposed workers.

17 DR. MAURO: I think you just hit the 

18 single most important point. There is always this 

19 completeness issue but when you feel that you do 

20 have a set of data that is the high end exposures, 

21 whereby you could say well, we are not missing any 

22 of the -- the data we do have is capturing the high 
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1 end folks and from there, launches into a coworker 

2 model.

3 Now, you just made reference to a table 

4 that is in your Site Profile?

5 DR. HUGHES: No, it is in the White 

6 Paper.

7 DR. MAURO: I have a couple of White 

8 Papers. I have yours, Lara on June 23rd.

9 MR. STIVER: It is Table 1 on page --

10 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: It is in June 

11 23rd's.

12 DR. MAURO: Yes, I have got that in my 

13 hand.

14 MR. STIVER: It begins on page 15.

15 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Fifteen and 

16 sixteen.

17 DR. MAURO: Okay, good. Thank you. 

18 Let me go look at that. Okay, where we go. Good.

19 MR. BARTON: Yes, I think what we 

20 really just wanted and, Lara you just gave some 

21 excellent points there, is to bring closure to this 

22 I think from the last meeting was, and you agreed, 
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1 that we really do need to close this out; go look 

2 at it and provide our rationale for why we believe 

3 that unmonitored doses just simply can't be 

4 assigned for this site because of A, B, and C. And 

5 I think that is really what we wanted to do is kind 

6 of get to those points that Lara just pointed out 

7 and have the Work Group understand exactly why a 

8 coworker model can't be built. And I think that 

9 is really all we were looking for.

10 DR. MAURO: Okay, this is good. This 

11 is good. And I did see this table and I am very 

12 appreciative that you have pointed this out.

13 So, what we have here is a nice summary 

14 by year for the data and what you are telling me 

15 is you don't know if this data goes toward NUMEC 

16 or Parks. But and it gives you -- these are the 

17 numbers of measurements that were made. 

18 For example, I am looking at 1965. You 

19 have got the total number of individuals that were 

20 measured were 131. And I believe those -- which 

21 I presume for each one of those individuals, 

22 whatever those measurements are, they could be 
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1 quarterly, they could be a single one-year 

2 measurement, they could be monthly. Am I 

3 understanding this correctly?

4 DR. HUGHES: Yes, it is the total.

5 DR. MAURO: Yes, and so would you --

6 what you are basically saying is for the year 1965, 

7 the data that you do have for beta, gamma, deep --

8 you don't have neutrons. We have got data for 131 

9 individuals that look at these metrics. And your 

10 position is from that, and this is good, in your 

11 judgment you really can't build a coworker model 

12 for external exposure for 1965. That amount of 

13 data is insufficient and there has got to be a 

14 reason why your takeaway is there is a reason why 

15 that is insufficient. And it has to go back to 

16 Jim's write-up on what you really need for a good 

17 coworker model.

18 And right now I guess I would say I'm 

19 not quite sure where it fails Jim's criteria.

20 DR. HUGHES: Well, for one, this is 

21 comingled data. So, it is like this is Parks and 

22 Apollo together. We determined that we cannot 
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1 tell who was Parks and who is Apollo from this data, 

2 from these 131 individuals. It might be both, in 

3 many cases, because workers transitioned back and 

4 forth.

5 DR. MAURO: Well, does that matter?

6 DR. HUGHES: Yes.

7 DR. NETON: Well, you have got two 

8 separate facilities, two separate covered 

9 facilities with comingled data. So, how are you 

10 going to say that this bounds this guy who worked 

11 at Parks versus this guy who worked at Apollo?

12 MR. STIVER: John, you have separate 

13 exposure scenarios for the two different sites, 

14 too.

15 DR. NETON: I mean forget 

16 stratification data base on job category. You 

17 can't even stratify based on facility.

18 MR. STIVER: And you know in my mind, 

19 the real kicker here is that you may not have a 

20 representative data set. You might be missing on 

21 the high end. That is really --

22 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: It could be one of 
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1 the facilities or the other.

2 DR. NETON: That is the other issue. 

3 It is not necessarily the number of samples you have 

4 but that you have a complete set of the samples.

5 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: John, this is 

6 Dave. John Mauro, you essentially are saying and 

7 we are all discussing why we can't have a coworker 

8 model and this doesn't fit for a coworker model. 

9 That's fine.

10 But the problem that we have from the 

11 point of view of the persons who are asking for 

12 compensation is that they have a non-designated 

13 cancer. And you are saying well, if they use the 

14 data that exists, you are effectively having a 

15 coworker model. I would turn it around and say you 

16 have this person. Because they have a 

17 non-designated cancer, they will not be 

18 compensated unless there is some data that gives 

19 some information that will allow you to make a 

20 partial dose reconstruction.

21 What is the problem with that? I mean 

22 otherwise, we are essentially saying if you feel 
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1 like it is inconsistent and implicitly, you don't 

2 want to use the data that is there, then you are 

3 just saying you are denying.

4 DR. MAURO: Right on target. But you 

5 brought it to the point -- there is one more step.

6 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay.

7 DR. MAURO: Everything you said is 

8 right on target. The next step is but if there is 

9 enough data out there -- you have a worker, you 

10 don't have any external dose for him, he is not 

11 covered and, therefore, he gets nothing. He gets 

12 no dose assigned. So, he's denied.

13 And all I am saying is well, hold the 

14 presses. We know the main reason why the SEC has 

15 granted his internal and why these people area all 

16 being compensated but for this guy and these other 

17 people who have cancers that are not covered. And 

18 NIOSH is doing the right thing. Well, if we have 

19 some external data for this guy, we are going to 

20 give it to him.

21 But I am kicking it one more step up 

22 because I think this is an important philosophical 
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1 -- not philosophical -- practical matter, really.

2 I'm just looking at 1965. And I'm 

3 saying alright, we have data. We have 131 

4 individuals who have data. Stay with me now.

5 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right.

6

7 DR. MAURO: And now this guy, he is not 

8 one of those 131 individuals but you do have 131 

9 individuals with data. And I say well, you know, 

10 you could take that 131 data points for that year 

11 and plot it. Okay, let's say we are talking about 

12 gamma, most of which is what we really care about 

13 anyway, most of the time. And there is 118 

14 measurements.

15 I take my 118 measurements for that 

16 year. Now don't forget, we are not talking about 

17 all the years now. We are just talking about one 

18 year. So, we are really getting pretty good. And 

19 we plot it and I come up with a 95th percentile value 

20 for that guy -- for that data set. And I say to 

21 myself, here is my 95th percentile value. Why 

22 can't I use that, assign that to this guy who has 
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1 no external data?

2 Now, here is the last step in the 

3 argument. Jim just argued that wait a minute, you 

4 can't do that. You know why? Because we don't 

5 know if that 118 gamma data represents the limiting 

6 group. Is it possible we are missing the important 

7 exposures?

8 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes, it is 

9 possible.

10 DR. MAURO: And that is the question 

11 that is not apparent to me. In other words, I know 

12 that an argument is being made well, that 118 could 

13 really be a mixture of some people from Parks and 

14 some people from Apollo. And one could argue that 

15 well, that is a problem.

16 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: That is a problem. 

17 Then, it is not very good. And then if you don't 

18 use it, then the man is denied or the person is 

19 denied.

20 DR. MAURO: Okay.

21 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: So you would 

22 rather -- I mean it may not be correct but it is 
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1 the best we have and if the best we have isn't good 

2 enough, denied.

3 DR. MAURO: Okay. And the only point 

4 I want to leave on the table because I don't 

5 entirely agree with that -- it doesn't make me 

6 right.

7 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay.

8 DR. MAURO: That is why we are having 

9 this meeting.

10 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right.

11 DR. MAURO: If I were doing it, and I 

12 would say listen, I am going to do the best I can, 

13 it is sort of like one of these cases where you are 

14 doing it blind. I was confronted with this. You 

15 said you know what I am going to do with this guy? 

16 I am going to pluck off the upper 95th percentile 

17 to 1965 of that 118 numbers. And you are right. 

18 I don't know if this is Parks or not. So, I would 

19 say so what. I am going to pick the upper 95th 

20 percentile, which is certainly going to be a 

21 plausible upper bound value that I could assign to 

22 this guy and I could feel pretty confident that I 
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1 am doing the right thing by this guy because I am 

2 trying to do the best I can to give him a plausible 

3 upper end external dose, even though he has no 

4 record and this way, we at least give him something, 

5 as opposed to nothing. And I would argue that that 

6 would be the right philosophy and policy to take.

7 And if that fact is incorrect, and if 

8 NIOSH has the judgement and the Board's judgement 

9 that no, John, you don't do that, I'm fine with 

10 that. But I felt compelled to say if I were doing 

11 it, that is what I would do.

12 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: I would agree with 

13 you.

14 DR. MAURO: Okay. So, there it was --

15 MR. STIVER: The other aspect, though, 

16 John, is that you are saying that 95th percentile, 

17 based on the available data, might be plausible but 

18 you reason to believe that that is really not the 

19 upper end of the distribution.

20 DR. NETON: You see, John, what happens 

21 in the case of the 95th percentile compensates that 

22 one fellow you are talking about. And then someone 
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1 else comes along and says well, that is not 

2 accurate. I had a higher exposure than that and 

3 he is not getting compensated because -- I don't 

4 know.

5 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Because why?

6 DR. NETON: Because you don't really 

7 know what the upper 95th percentile is in this case. 

8 And so it sort of ends up being an arbitrary 

9 assignment based on the data that you have and you 

10 don't know is of sufficient quality to set that 95th 

11 percentile.

12 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: So, I would rather 

13 deny you. And I think we have to -- our assignment 

14 under this law is to be, if you will, worker 

15 friendly, or give the benefit of the doubt to the 

16 worker.

17 And to not use the data is to deny all 

18 the workers.

19 MR. KATZ: But Dave, I mean this is 

20 worked out very early in the program. You can't 

21 do minimum dose reconstructions. It is not 

22 defensible legally for the reason that Jim 
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1 explained. Because it may benefit one worker but 

2 another worker, just as he says, can contend that 

3 they have higher doses and there is no way to sort 

4 it out.

5 I mean that is just a settled matter in 

6 terms of we don't do that. We don't do minimum 

7 estimates. We can't defend those legally in 

8 court.

9 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: But then -- well, 

10 I accept that that is the case and that was 

11 determined well before I was around. But does that 

12 mean that we can never compensate partial dose 

13 reconstruction?

14 MR. KATZ: No, no because partial dose 

15 reconstructions are based on actual data in hand 

16 on a person. So, generally speaking, the partial 

17 dose reconstructions, you can't do a coworker 

18 model, so you can't compensate the people that 

19 weren't monitored.

20 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay.

21 MR. KATZ: But there is no deficiency 

22 for those who were monitored. So, you can deal 
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1 with their cases. And that, generally, is what a 

2 partial dose reconstruction is.

3 DR. NETON: That is not to say we could 

4 never have coworker models for some sites.

5 MR. KATZ: Right.

6 MR. STIVER: It would give the SEC 

7 based on the inability to do thorium internal but 

8 you might have a perfectly good external dose.

9 DR. NETON: And we have examples of 

10 that.

11 MR. KATZ: Right and it is still a 

12 partial.

13 DR. MAURO: In my mind, we are almost 

14 there. So, you are saying to me that you believe 

15 that 118 measurements for 1965, since you cannot 

16 say with a high degree of confidence that that 

17 captures the upper end distribution of the 

18 exposures, that it may very well be some data you 

19 happen to have and the selection of those 118 people 

20 were not done because they were the people they were 

21 worried about, they just happen to be people that 

22 were badged. And if that is the case, I would agree 
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1 with you. I would say listen, we got 118 numbers 

2 and we don't even know what they mean.

3 But if it turns out that the records 

4 show the known data policy, we are badging these 

5 -- these people we decided to badge, we badged 

6 because we had good reason to badge them and we do 

7 believe they were problematic. What do you do in 

8 that circumstance?

9 MR. STIVER: The should build a 

10 coworker model.

11 DR. NETON: Then we would build a 

12 coworker model. But again, the statements that 

13 John Stiver read that were part of our discussion, 

14 discussed why we don't believe those numbers are 

15 useful to us.

16 DR. MAURO: What I heard John read is 

17 you really didn't know which site to put them at.

18 MR. KATZ: No, there is two things, 

19 John. John, there is two things.

20 DR. MAURO: Okay.

21 MR. KATZ: I could just clearly state 

22 two things. One, you have people monitored for 
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1 internal that definitely have no external dose. 

2 So, you know people were exposed and not monitored. 

3 So, you already know that is an incomplete external 

4 set.

5 DR. MAURO: Okay.

6 MR. KATZ: Okay, that is firm. It is 

7 not conjecture. It is actually a firm fact that 

8 you don't have an incomplete set.

9 DR. MAURO: Okay.

10 MR. KATZ: And the second thing is if 

11 you have two different sites, data from two 

12 different sites comingled and you can't separate 

13 the two, think about it this way. They might as 

14 well be at Rocky Flats and Savannah River. You are 

15 not going to apply Rocky Flats data to the Savannah 

16 River workers. You can't do that if you had 

17 mingled data. You wouldn't be able to apply it and 

18 make a coworker model based on both Rocky Flats and 

19 Savannah for only Savannah River workers.

20 It is the same thing here. I mean they 

21 are all under the same company but they are two 

22 separate facilities, completely separate 
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1 facilities. They are treated separately as far as 

2 this compensation program is concerned.

3 DR. MAURO: Okay, let me just take you 

4 a little bit on that. We have an operation called 

5 NUMEC. It happens to have two physically 

6 different locations and they happen to manage their 

7 external dosimetry program under a single umbrella 

8 and they didn't go through the trouble as they 

9 perhaps might have by saying who got his dose where, 

10 when.

11 So, we have a pool of workers who you 

12 both agreed could very well have gone between the 

13 two sites. Sometimes they work there; sometimes 

14 they work there.

15 So, what we have is a pool of workers 

16 that could be in different locations but if there 

17 is some evidence, and here is where -- I'm ready 

18 to go with you guys on this but doesn't mean you 

19 have captured the high end. That is what I am stuck 

20 on. If I felt as if that notwithstanding the fact 

21 that we don't really -- he may have been here; he 

22 may have been there but we do know one thing for 
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1 sure. Whenever we decided to badge someone, 

2 wherever you happen to go, we picked him because 

3 he was a high-end guy because of the nature of the 

4 job. I would argue that that makes for a coworker 

5 model.

6 MR. KATZ: No, John, it doesn't matter. 

7 If you can't say which site the data come from, you 

8 can't apply it to a person from another site. You 

9 can't.

10 DR. NETON: How would you know the high 

11 end of Parks was not higher than the high end at 

12 Apollo? And so now you have got stratified data 

13 you can't segregate. So, I am going to assign the 

14 guy the mixture, even though I worked at Apollo that 

15 may have had a much higher 95th percentile than the 

16 Parks data. We don't know. I mean I'm not saying 

17 that is true but you just can't tell.

18 DR. MAURO: I hear what you are saying. 

19 And listen, I'm not digging my heels in because I 

20 want to. It has got to make sense to me. 

21 I have got an RSO that is running the 

22 health physics program that covers both sites. 
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1 And I am making the decision of who I am going to 

2 badge and who I am not going to badge on a day to 

3 day or week to week basis. And I know sometimes 

4 I'm sending a guy off to Apollo and sometimes I am 

5 sending him off to NUMEC. But I am going to make 

6 a decision on that day or that week or that month 

7 when the guy is going to be there who I am going 

8 to give that TLD to or who I am not going to give 

9 it to. And in my mind, that is a single program. 

10 I don't care that they are physically in two 

11 different locations. I'm managing a pool of 

12 workers in a way that I feel confident that I am 

13 managing the people who are getting the high end 

14 doses and they need to be managed. So, I don't 

15 accept that.

16 MR. KATZ: Well, you don't accept it 

17 but it is just the way it is. Because again, they 

18 didn't have the exact same exposures in those two 

19 facilities. They are not identical. So, you 

20 don't. You have data for two different facilities 

21 that have been mingled. You don't know which goes 

22 with which and you can't apply data from one 
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1 facility to people at another facility, unless you 

2 go through that whole surrogate thing that doesn't 

3 apply.

4 DR. MAURO: I don't agree with that.

5 MR. STIVER: John, there is one other 

6 aspect that Lara brought up earlier was that 

7 oftentimes they use area monitoring to determine 

8 who was going to get badged. So, it is not like 

9 you have got an RSO who is basing his assignments 

10 of dosimeters on exposure potential. We have got 

11 a situation where there may be high exposure 

12 potential with no external dosimetry.

13 MR. THURBER: But isn't it also true that 

14 if you want to try and compensate as many people 

15 as make some sense to do, you take whatever data 

16 you have got, whether it is representative of the 

17 high end or not and say we are going to apply this 

18 data to all these people. They are better off than 

19 -- your alternative is to deny them all. Do I 

20 understand it correctly?

21 DR. NETON: Well, you can't assign an

22 arbitrary number and start making compensation 
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1 decisions. If I pick an arbitrary value and say 

2 that is certainly higher than X, just as Ted just 

3 explained --

4 MR. THURBER: No, I'm not saying 

5 arbitrary. You take the data you have and I'm 

6 going to use it.

7 DR. NETON: But it is arbitrary because 

8 there is no basis for it, other than the fact that 

9 it is the data that I have that I can't determine 

10 whether it is a bounding value, a representative 

11 value of exposures.

12 MR. KATZ: And that is the part, Bill, 

13 I was saying that has been settled.

14 MR. THURBER: Okay.

15 MR. KATZ: That is really a settled 

16 matter. There is no really point in debating it 

17 again because it is so already completely settled 

18 and the lawyers put their foot down on that matter.

19 MR. THURBER: Okay, fine. That 

20 clarifies that, but one other point, and I am a 

21 dispassionate observer on this particular site. 

22 The conversation started out regarding 
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1 the neutron/proton ratio and the fact that if we 

2 have proton data that we can use a factor to also 

3 calculate the neutron exposure. Now, does that 

4 constitute a coworker model? Not in my mind.

5 DR. NETON: That's used to augment a 

6 person who was monitored for photons. I have a 

7 badge and I have a photon exposure. And you know 

8 that there is a certain ratio associated with the 

9 photons and neutrons, you can augment their 

10 measured exposure, not some made up value.

11 MR. THURBER: No, no, I understand that 

12 and I don't think that is a coworker model.

13 DR. MAURO: No. No, not if you don't 

14 know where the guy worked. Now you are telling me 

15 I have got a photon dose for a guy who may be at 

16 Apollo versus Parks and we know that Parks was a 

17 plutonium-oriented facility but I'm going to go 

18 ahead and use this neutron/photon business when you 

19 don't know where he was. And clearly, there has 

20 got to be a big difference in the neutron/photon 

21 relationship between Parks and Apollo.

22 So, there is a lot of things here that 
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1 are churning up stuff that we really haven't 

2 churned up before. And I find myself in a position 

3 where I feel as if we are not doing everything we 

4 can to assign what I would consider to be a 

5 plausible bounding dose to this guy who is not 

6 covered by the SEC and it certainly looks to me that 

7 you know, I think I can find a way to assign a 

8 plausibly bounding dose for this guy. And based 

9 on the data that I have --

10 DR. NETON: You know, John, you have 

11 got to be consistent. You look at the 

12 implementation guide --

13 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: It doesn't have to 

14 be fair.

15 DR. NETON: -- we are going through a 

16 lot of hoops to demonstrate that these data are 

17 plausible -- not plausible -- representative. And 

18 you just can't sort of ignore that now and say well, 

19 I want to be a good guy and generous and start making 

20 up numbers just because you feel they should get 

21 more exposure. I mean it just doesn't work that 

22 way.
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1 DR. MAURO: Well, I don't think --

2 well, I don't think you are making up numbers here. 

3 I think we are looking at some really nice numbers. 

4 I see 118 measurements just in 1965 alone and I know 

5 I can do a lot with that.

6 DR. NETON: Well, I agree John but --

7 DR. MAURO: I have to say, listen, 

8 first of all, I want to apologize to everyone 

9 because sometimes I get stuck on things that when 

10 they don't make sense to me, I just don't let go. 

11 And right now I am in a place where I am 

12 uncomfortable with the way in which this is -- I 

13 respect the decision.

14 DR. NETON: I would like you to start 

15 thinking about some of the other sites where we have 

16 developed coworker models and all the hoops we 

17 jumped through to demonstrate that they were 

18 representative. 

19 I think about places like Savannah 

20 River, Idaho, Rocky Flats, to some extent, when we

21 went and developed some of those models. We went 

22 to great lengths to look at data completeness, 
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1 representativeness.

2 DR. MAURO: Yes, but Jim, that was the 

3 purpose to decide whether we are going to make this 

4 an SEC or not.

5 DR. NETON: Right, based on --

6 DR. MAURO: We are not talking about 

7 that here. We are saying we have already granted 

8 the SEC. And all we are trying to do is do the best 

9 we can to give this guy some dose that we think is 

10 fair --

11 DR. NETON: But you have a double 

12 standard.

13 MR. STIVER: So, the implication there 

14 is that we have a lower standard for commercial dose 

15 reconstruction than any other kind. So, we can't 

16 have that sort of patchwork.

17 DR. NETON: You can't have a double 

18 standard here.

19 DR. MAURO: We have two different 

20 frames of reference. In the Rocky Flats 

21 situation, it was well, listen, can we build a 

22 coworker model and if we can't, we have got to grant 
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1 the SEC. And that is the one frame of reference 

2 which is extremely important. It has been 

3 resolved and it is clean.

4 Now, we have a different set of 

5 circumstances where we have an SEC. We have got 

6 a bunch of people that we would like to assign some 

7 doses to and what you are saying is we are not going 

8 to assign those doses.

9 MR. KATZ: That context has nothing to 

10 do with it. It should not be a factor because it 

11 is, is the science good enough or is it not is the 

12 question and you can't have two standards. It 

13 won't hold up legally, either. I mean that would 

14 just be so easy to contest.

15 DR. MAURO: Okay. Well --

16 MR. BARTON: John, hold on for a 

17 second. This is Bob. I think I can kind of sum 

18 this up pretty well. I mean at the last meeting, 

19 there was a lot of discussion on this. 

20 If Parks had been an 83.13 instead of 

21 an 83.14, then I would assume that in that SEC 

22 Evaluation Report, it would also say that external 
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1 dose isn't feasible for reasons A, B, and C. The 

2 fact that it was an 83.14 is very -- the efficiency 

3 of getting that SEC in place as soon as possible, 

4 the external wasn't evaluated and that is what we 

5 brought up last year and which NIOSH agreed to go 

6 back and look at. And they came to the conclusion 

7 that what we have is neither sufficiently accurate 

8 or necessarily bounding.

9 So, like I said, I think it was -- and 

10 Jim you can correct me -- if this had been an 83.13, 

11 then the ER Report would have probably said we can't 

12 reconstruct external doses either.

13 DR. NETON: That's correct.

14 MR. BARTON: So, this was a step that 

15 we asked for because it just seemed like a loose 

16 end was out there. So, the low dose was never 

17 evaluated for coworker feasibility. And it sounds 

18 like NIOSH is finding, though, that it is, in fact, 

19 infeasible, based on the stringent guidelines that 

20 have been set up for SEC Issues Work Group and are 

21 in the implementation guide.

22 So, I mean we asked them to look into 
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1 it and they looked into it and concluded it is not 

2 possible. And now it is sort of, I mean, it is kind 

3 of -- and that is the discussion I wanted to hear 

4 in a Work Group setting that the Work Group knows 

5 why it isn't feasible. And then they can either 

6 agree or send us all back to the drawing board or 

7 what have you. But I thought that discussion was 

8 warranted and I think we got it.

9 DR. MAURO: And I have got to thank 

10 everyone for allowing me to say my piece. Thank 

11 you.

12 MEMBER FIELD: This is Bill. I don't 

13 want to prolong the conversation but John, do you 

14 believe, I mean this is the way I am hearing it, 

15 that you can do a bounding dose based on those 118 

16 measurements. Is that what you are saying?

17 DR. MAURO: Yes, I'm going to argue 

18 that someone decided in 1965 to monitor 118 people 

19 for external dose and I'm going to say -- and I will 

20 maybe do a little bit more homework and say well, 

21 let me see if I can figure out the reason why this 

22 guy decided to assign his film badge or a TLD to 
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1 118 people.

2 And I am going to walk away from that 

3 saying you know he probably did that based on some 

4 judgment on who he thinks he should assign it to. 

5 And usually, usually those judgments are we are 

6 sending this guy to a place where we probably should 

7 monitor him because he is probably going to get more 

8 than ten percent of the allowable exposure limit. 

9 And I think that was the correct area. So, we are 

10 going to monitor it.

11 So, as far as I am concerned, that is 

12 why he was picked, why these 118 were picked because 

13 these are the ones that had the greatest potential 

14 for external exposure.

15 So, now you have put me in the place 

16 where I need to be. That is, yes, we are looking 

17 at these subpopulation of workers that somebody 

18 made an informed judgment need to be monitored. 

19 Bingo. 

20 Now, I have got myself a data set that 

21 represents a distribution of workers that probably 

22 were more likely than not the higher end potential 
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1 for exposure. I grab those numbers and make a 

2 distribution and I pick off the 95th percentile and 

3 I assign that dose to this guy who is not covered 

4 by the SEC but I give him that external dose so we 

5 get something to the organ of concern. That is 

6 what I would have done.

7 DR. NETON: Okay but John, you have got 

8 to look at the other side of the picture. Apollo 

9 Site was an 83.13 and we did evaluate external and 

10 we determined we couldn't do external doses at 

11 Apollo, primarily because they had these 

12 radium-beryllium and polonium-beryllium sources. 

13 There was no indication of monitoring. We have no 

14 indication of source-term. So, we have no idea 

15 what kind of exposures may have occurred there. 

16 And now you have a commingled data set that includes 

17 both Apollo and Parks in the same monitoring 

18 program. So, I don't know how you can argue that 

19 you have got a bounding dose, based on those 118 

20 people.

21 DR. MAURO: Alright, I have to admit 

22 that argument you just made is very strong. You 
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1 are saying you can show that there are job 

2 categories where there could have been quite 

3 external exposures that were not under the 83.13, 

4 that were not monitored and that is why you granted 

5 the SEC and this group of 118 may very well have 

6 included some of those, which you are making a case 

7 that means that that 118 does not necessarily 

8 represent the bounding case.

9 DR. NETON: Right.

10 DR. MAURO: Alright, you win. Thank 

11 you, but this was good.

12 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay, any other? 

13 So, going back upstream on this, there are still 

14 a number of open issues here that are progressing.

15 DR. MAURO: Yes, I think we did the 

16 thing that I really wanted to do.

17 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: We have got to --

18 up to number --

19 DR. NETON: That was a key issue, 

20 though.

21 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Oh, yes, I agree.

22 MR. STIVER: Yes, it really is kind of 
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1 the thread that runs through there.

2 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yes, I mean it 

3 underscores a lot of detail.

4 DR. MAURO: Where we are now is there 

5 are questions that SC&A raised regarding now where 

6 you do have data and whether or not the data that 

7 you do have and how you are using that information 

8 to assign this dose to this person and these are 

9 the questions that were raised by Joe Zlotnicki --

10 and thank you so much for staying. I'm hoping Joe 

11 is still there and Joyce -- where we have some 

12 concerns on how they were planning to use that data 

13 to reconstruct not only internal but also external. 

14 And those are the only issues in my mind that are 

15 left.

16 And if we can close those out, whereby 

17 the questions we have regarding those, we are done, 

18 in my opinion. So, I think that is where we need 

19 to be now, unless someone thinks there are other 

20 things that we should do first.

21 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Hi, Dave. You 

22 referred to settled decision before. I didn't 
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1 know and have not looked at the materials regarding 

2 that decision and I would like to think more about 

3 the issue that John just agreed to.

4 So, I am, if you will, abstaining until 

5 I get more information and learn a little bit more. 

6 I see the arguments and I am perfectly happy to go 

7 ahead with those other findings. But if it is 

8 implied that I agree, I don't agree but I don't 

9 necessarily disagree. I feel like I need a little 

10 more information and thinking a little bit more 

11 about this issue. It was certainly the first time 

12 I have come across it.

13 DR. MAURO: Dr. Kotelchuck, I would be 

14 more than -- see, Jim just convinced me and, as you 

15 know, it took a lot of work but he made a case that 

16 brought him across the end zone. And anytime you 

17 would like -- Jim, certainly you could explain it 

18 better than I can -- but what did it for me to turn 

19 the corner is conceptually very simple and I would 

20 be more than happy to explain the reason why I am 

21 comfortable now. And if you would like to talk 

22 about it, I would be glad to help.
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1 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right. Right, 

2 well, I think I may wish to. And also I want to 

3 find out a little bit more from Ted about when the 

4 decision was made earlier by lawyers about what 

5 would hold up legally and what would not. And I 

6 may well be convinced on it. 

7 But I would like a little more 

8 information and I just want to put it on the table 

9 that I don't feel fully informed to make a decision 

10 implicitly to deny compensation to the persons in 

11 this situation.

12 MR. KATZ: Yes, Dave, that's fine. I 

13 am happy to talk to you about the legal parts of 

14 it.

15 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Sure and maybe I 

16 will speak to both. First, I would like to speak 

17 with you, Ted, further, outside of this meeting.

18 MR. KATZ: Okay.

19 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: We have got a lot 

20 of things to do. I don't want to hold it up.

21 But I don't want to imply that we are 

22 all agreed and let's go ahead. I'm not agreed but 
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1 I'm not disagreed either. Okay. So, let's go on. 

2 I mean I have said my piece.

3 DR. MAURO: If you like -- again, I 

4 apologize if I keep inserting myself here -- I went 

5 very carefully through the work done by Lara and 

6 Dennis Strenge and identified the findings that I 

7 believe are still at a place where a little 

8 discussion is needed. I have a little table in 

9 front of me that I use to -- and the vast majority 

10 of them, I have checked off and said okay, I think 

11 the answer has been provided and it is 

12 satisfactory. But of course, I am not the final 

13 arbiter on these matters.

14 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right.

15 DR. MAURO: But some of them have been 

16 closed out already. In other words, if you go back 

17 to the transcript for the August last year, they 

18 have been closed out and that is a done deal. So, 

19 the ones that I have noted here are the ones that 

20 were not, in fact, closed out, still requires a 

21 little discussion. And if it helps, I would be 

22 glad to point out which ones those are. Or Lara, 
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1 you did all the work and I'm doing all the talking.

2 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: I would like to 

3 first speak to Ted and then understand the 

4 decisions that were made previously and then maybe 

5 get back in touch with you, John. I appreciate 

6 your offer but I think we need to go ahead with 

7 talking about the findings that we have now on the 

8 table.

9 MR. KATZ: Alright, that is what John 

10 is trying to do. He's trying to get into the 

11 details.

12 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay, I appreciate 

13 that and I will be in touch with you.

14 DR. MAURO: And Lara, you did so much 

15 work here -- and Dennis -- to address the items that 

16 are before us now, that now that we have got this 

17 other stuff out of the way. Perhaps you folks 

18 would like to go ahead and take the lead on that.

19 DR. HUGHES: I certainly can. Do you 

20 want me to walk through each finding? I mean, if 

21 you want to just --

22 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Let's just go one 
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1 at a time and close down the ones we can safely --

2 DR. HUGHES: Yes, well the closed ones, 

3 they were closed under the condition that the 

4 change is included in the TBD revision. I have 

5 gone through the TBD revision draft and ensured 

6 that they included in one way or another now. It 

7 hasn't been issued. I realize that. But we'll 

8 just leave it at that, I guess.

9 DR. NETON: I guess they think it'll be 

10 in abeyance until the --

11 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yes.

12 DR. HUGHES: Yes, so the first one was 

13 the open one that shows up on my list is finding 

14 number 4D, uranium inhalation recommendations. 

15 Now, when this was initially discussed 

16 at the Work Group meeting last year, it kind of went 

17 from this issue towards this coworker model 

18 discussion that we, I think, just addressed to a 

19 certain extent. So, our response was really to 

20 this issue was that we would go and look at the 

21 feasibility of the coworker model and we have done 

22 that and we have discussed that. So, let's just 
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1 move on, if that is okay.

2 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: So, four was 

3 closed --

4 DR. HUGHES: Yes.

5 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: -- with the 

6 exception of the coworker. And we discussed that. 

7 So, four is basically done.

8 DR. HUGHES: Yes, the same as with 

9 number five that had something to do with the --

10 MR. BARTON: Lara?

11 DR. HUGHES: Yes?

12 MR. BARTON: If I might, because the 

13 finding 4 was about uranium. We are kind of just 

14 talking about external dosimetry. It -- was the 

15 same feasibility generally found and could you talk 

16 a little bit about what you guys found when you 

17 evaluated uranium specifically? Because we are 

18 talking about unmonitored workers again in 

19 coworker models. 

20 In the external dosimetry context, 

21 could you talk a little bit about the work that was 

22 done to determine the feasibility or 
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1 infeasibility, as it seems, for uranium intakes?

2 MR. STIVER: This is regarding a DWE 

3 data, wasn't it?

4 DR. NETON: Well, they are two separate 

5 issues, really. The DWE data --

6 MR. STIVER: That is a part that was 

7 essentially closed out, based on the --

8 DR. NETON: Yes, the DWE that you have 

9 -- that infeasibility actually comes in more in 

10 finding -- is that 14 or 18? It is one of the later 

11 findings.

12 See I think this thing got -- these two 

13 things sort of got conflated. There was a DWE 

14 issue where we said we are not using DWE, we used 

15 GA air samples and we put a GSD of 5 on it and I 

16 think that is close.

17 The issue about dealing with can we do 

18 a coworker model for uranium comes down later in 

19 the findings, I think. Which one was that? 

20 DR. HUGHES: I think it is 18. 

21 DR. NETON: 18.

22 DR. HUGHES: That was the -- to come up 
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1 with a starting point for the residual period. I 

2 think that is where the air data was used.

3 DR. NETON: Oh, 18 was for the 

4 breathing zone air samples.

5 DR. HUGHES: Yes, there was an earlier 

6 where we used -- in some cases, where a worker had 

7 breathing zone data, that was used for internal and 

8 that was kind of a leftover from pre-SEC 

9 methodology in very specific cases. 

10 And Dennis can correct me if I am wrong 

11 here because I don't actually do the dose 

12 reconstructions. There are some cases where they 

13 used a worker's individual breathing zone data to 

14 assess their internal doses.

15 MR. STRENGE: Yes, that is correct.

16 DR. MAURO: There is one more dimension 

17 to finding 4. There was a little bit of confusion 

18 related to when you talk about GA versus BZ air 

19 sampling and when you use it for operations and when 

20 you use it for residual. And I believe that this 

21 has all been resolved.

22 DR. NETON: Right. 
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1 DR. MAURO: I think there is agreement 

2 that the right way to go is for the residual period 

3 you have a general air data and that is the right 

4 data to use when you are going to move into the 

5 residual period.

6 DR. NETON: Right, that was finding 18.

7 DR. MAURO: I think it was a little, in 

8 my opinion, compounding of the two issues. One, 

9 a breathing zone during operation which, as you 

10 just explained is not at play for operations. But 

11 the general air aspect of this really went toward 

12 reconstruction doses during residual period. And 

13 the way in which I read the response is yes, that 

14 is the plan. The plan is to use the classic GA data 

15 that is available during operation as your starting 

16 point for the residual period. So, I think finding 

17 4 is fine.

18 DR. NETON: Okay but it does -- if we 

19 did sort of devolve into this discussion on 

20 internal coworker models as part of that discussion 

21 and Lara has covered that in her paper, starting 

22 on page 13? Yes. So, I think Bob was asking about 
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1 what our opinion is on coworker for uranium.

2 DR. HUGHES: Okay, sorry.

3 DR. NETON: And maybe Lara can explain. 

4 If you want to cover that now, that is fine or we 

5 can --

6 DR. HUGHES: Yes, we did a similar 

7 evaluation for the internal the uranium and we are 

8 running into the same issues that we discussed for 

9 the external that we are looking at commingled 

10 data, the inability to stratify by site and also 

11 the inability to stratify by job title because we 

12 don't have -- the records we have do not include 

13 job titles. So, that is the two main drivers here. 

14 It would lead to an inability to do a coworker model 

15 for uranium. That is really it.

16 MR. BARTON: Okay, this is Bob. So, 

17 the state of the records were essentially the same 

18 and the same deficiencies were found for the 

19 uranium records and the external.

20 DR. HUGHES: That is correct.

21 MR. BARTON: Okay, thank you.

22 DR. HUGHES: Okay, shall we move on?
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1 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yes.

2 DR. HUGHES: Okay, number five. Okay, 

3 so finding 6, there was a discussion about the 

4 plutonium fuel grade mix that was addressed in the 

5 TBD that was used for the partial dose 

6 reconstructions. And there was a request that 

7 this was not sufficiently detailed. This was 

8 discussed in last year's Work Group meeting and 

9 SC&A has raised the issue that there might have been 

10 other possible plutonium mixes at the site that 

11 should be investigated.

12 We have looked into it to the extent 

13 that we have records and the update really is that 

14 we cannot -- that we do not know how to pursue this 

15 issue any further. We do not have any more data. 

16 So, what we currently have can be used to make a 

17 reasonably claimant-favorable assumption for 

18 partial dose reconstructions and anything else 

19 would be more or less speculation. Any 

20 reported plutonium bioassay can be used that is in 

21 people's records, and there really is no other 

22 information that we have. We do not expect that 
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1 any additional data capture is possible at this 

2 site. The site has been somewhat hard to work 

3 with, to put it mildly. So, we feel like we have 

4 gotten everything that we can.

5 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: There is no 

6 indication of other fuels that you know of?

7 DR. HUGHES: There is some indications 

8 that they had various amounts or various types of 

9 fuels. We just don't quite know. And we can do 

10 a claimant-favorable assumption. I think it is 

11 stated in the TBD.

12 DR. OSTROW: Lara, this is Steve 

13 Ostrow. This is finding 6 that we are talking 

14 about?

15 DR. HUGHES: Right.

16 DR. OSTROW: I saw that in the past that 

17 you said that you were going to put certain things 

18 in the new Revision 3 of TBD. I just want to 

19 confirm one of the comments was that -- then you 

20 said you would do this -- provide some guidance in 

21 the TBD how the dose reconstructor is supposed to 

22 select which of these four different isotopic mixes 
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1 that you are going to be giving. So, is that correct 

2 that you are going to give some guidance in the next 

3 TBD issue of how to use this table?

4 DR. HUGHES: I do believe that is 

5 correct. Typically, those reconstructors are 

6 trained on use of the documents. And even if it 

7 may not be spelled out in the TBD, they usually have 

8 tools in place to use what is available, the data 

9 consistently in a claimant-favorable manner, at 

10 least --

11 DR. OSTROW: Well, how are we supposed 

12 to know whether the instructions that you give the 

13 dose reconstructors, the guidance, is valid if we 

14 don't see it, if it is not written in the TBD? That 

15 is one issue.

16 DR. HUGHES: We certainly tried to 

17 address it in the TBD. Now -- this is a little bit 

18 more of an overarching issue, but there are --

19 sometimes there will be details that are not in the 

20 TBD that are done. Now, that is often maybe not 

21 evident when the TBD is prepared. I don't know. 

22 I don't want to --
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1 DR. MAURO: This is John. I might be 

2 able to help out a little bit here. In looking over 

3 Dennis and Jim's report dated May 14, 2015, on 

4 finding 6 there is a great deal of information 

5 describing just what was brought up now by Steve. 

6 It is one of those documents that I came 

7 across as I was reviewing it. Am I correct that 

8 the guidance or the information that is contained 

9 here in great detail is the kind of information that 

10 you plan to insert into the next revision? In 

11 effect, that is sort of a preview.

12 DR. NETON: Yes, I think so. That was 

13 our original response, was we were going to update 

14 the table with the recently captured information.

15 DR. MAURO: Right. So, it is here, in 

16 theory of this is what we are going to see in the 

17 updated TBD.

18 MR. STIVER: And it is Table 5.3 or 5-3 

19 of the May 2014 report. It says right there 

20 guidance will be added regarding selection of the 

21 appropriate inventory component for evaluation of 

22 internal doses based on available information, 
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1 which is what Steve was getting at.

2 DR. OSTROW: Yes, okay. That's what I 

3 understand. I also have a little further 

4 question.

5 I guess there are two cases that are 

6 considered. One is where you actually know where 

7 the worker was working and what fuels he was exposed 

8 to, so you can pick one of the four isotopic 

9 compositions that are given at Table 5-3.

10 The other case is where you didn't

11 actually know where the worker was working. And 

12 in that case, I assume that the guidance is going 

13 to say okay, pick the most claimant-favorable of 

14 the mixes that you have. How is the dose 

15 reconstructor going to do that? Is he going to run 

16 different combinations of grade and agent to see 

17 which is the limiting dose for that worker where 

18 you don't have that much information? Is there 

19 going to be a worksheet that is going to go with 

20 it?

21 DR. HUGHES: Yes, I'm not sure there is 

22 a worksheet but that is typically how it is done, 
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1 that they would run different scenarios and pick 

2 the one that is more claimant-favorable. 

3 Although, I mean -- if Dennis will correct me. I 

4 don't usually do these. I only review them 

5 occasionally.

6 MR. STRENGE: Yes, that is correct. 

7 It is up to the dose reconstructor to be sure he 

8 has got the claimant-favorable for non-compensable 

9 claim. 

10 DR. OSTROW: So, how would he do that? 

11 Would he actually run the different cases and pick 

12 the one that is the most claimant-favorable?

13 MR. STRENGE: Yes, he could pick a few, 

14 not a whole lot. And pretty quick, he will get an 

15 idea of what is giving you the higher dose.

16 DR. OSTROW: Okay and this sort of 

17 guidance will be in the new TBD?

18 MR. STRENGE: Yes, I believe so. It 

19 has been a while since I looked at it.

20 DR. OSTROW: Okay, that is basically 

21 it, then. I think this particular finding, we 

22 don't have any issues with what NIOSH is doing or 
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1 saying but we sort of have to see for ourselves when 

2 the new TBD revision comes out.

3 MR. KATZ: So, is this one we are saying 

4 to put in abeyance?

5 DR. OSTROW: I guess it is abeyance 

6 until we see the new TBD text.

7 MR. KATZ: Yes, thanks, Steve.

8 MR. STIVER: So I have a procedural 

9 question for you.

10 MR. KATZ: Yes.

11 MR. STIVER: I am assuming that when 

12 the TBD comes out, we're -- it is fair game for us 

13 to go back and --

14 MR. KATZ: Go look and -- yes, because 

15 before we have the whatever, the next Work Group 

16 meeting, the same with the other Site Profile 

17 review we're talking about where we have stuff in 

18 abeyance to check and see that it is in order.

19 DR. HUGHES: Okay, I am going to move 

20 on to finding 7. Finding 7 was regarding the MDAs 

21 for the lung counts for americium-241. The issue 

22 was that the counting method should be further 
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1 explored in order to give them credibility. NIOSH 

2 has agreed to add some additional guidance to the 

3 draft TBD and has reviewed the additional data to 

4 come up with more reasonable values. But SC&A 

5 reiterated their concerns. 

6 During the previous discussion, Dr. 

7 Neton agreed that the MDA numbers for plutonium 

8 looked low and we agreed to further look into the 

9 issue. SC&A issued another iteration of their 

10 assessment that the MDA values for in vivo 

11 monitoring for americium-241 and plutonium-239 are 

12 not reliable, that very limited data is available, 

13 and that the low reported values for MDAs for 

14 americium-241 in vivo lung monitoring need to be 

15 further developed.

16 The values for plutonium-239 are not 

17 considered credible due to the fact that the 17 keV 

18 X-rays are being measured directly. We have 

19 looked somewhat more into the issue, evaluated the 

20 chest count data that was done by NUMEC. We found 

21 that many of the reported results have the MDA value 

22 reported on the result with a bioassay result.
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1 Or if it is not detectable, it will 

2 state that it is below the MDA and it will list the 

3 MDA. The MDAs appear to be somewhat lower than 

4 what might be reported today but it would be 

5 difficult to come up with an alternate value. We 

6 just don't have any information.

7 Most of the measurements for NUMEC were 

8 done at the University of Pittsburgh facility, 

9 where the NUMEC in vivo program was done. It was 

10 overseen by a person who is highly regarded in the 

11 field. Can you give the name or --

12 DR. NETON: I would rather not give you 

13 the name.

14 DR. HUGHES: Alright, that's fine. So, 

15 the lower MDAs could be a result of calibration 

16 tandems used at the time.

17 DR. NETON: This is Jim. I kind of was 

18 involved more in this one and I basically -- I don't 

19 know how we would go back and reconstruct what the 

20 real MDAs were for that counting system at that 

21 time, rather than what we've just proposed to use 

22 the face values that were reported. I don't know 
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1 how you would go and make up a detection limit for 

2 the counting system at the University of Pittsburgh 

3 at that time.

4 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Jim?

5 DR. NETON: Yes.

6 DR. LIPSZTEIN: I don't know if it is 

7 worthwhile this discussion for numbers of the 

8 cancers, discussion on plutonium and americium. 

9 But if you are overestimating the counting 

10 deficiency, this is not claimant-favorable. 

11 Right?

12 DR. NETON: I agree with that but I 

13 don't know how we would come up with any other way 

14 to change it. I know what -- we know what the 

15 detection limits are for various systems but it 

16 depends, of course, as you know, on the background 

17 of the counter, how long the counting time was, type 

18 of detector, the geometry that was used to do the 

19 lung measurement. You know, I don't think we can 

20 just pick a number and say okay, the detection limit 

21 is 100 nanocuries or something like that for 

22 plutonium. 
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1 So, I think as a partial dose 

2 reconstruction goes, it is claimant-favorable --

3 not favorable but it's a partial dose 

4 reconstruction to use the data as it was reported. 

5 And again, I don't know that it is going to make 

6 any big difference in compensation but we really 

7 can't -- that is really not a valid reason not to 

8 do something.

9 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes.

10 DR. NETON: So, our position is that we 

11 are going to use the values. Because again, I 

12 looked at the setup and I don't know how we come 

13 up with some other number. If it says it was a 

14 positive 15 nanocuries, that is what we will use.

15 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes. That is if you 

16 use the ---

17 (Simultaneous speaking.)

18 DR. NETON: That was the other point I 

19 was going to make is I'm not sure how often the lung 

20 counting would be used versus the urine data. And 

21 maybe in this case, it may be appropriate just to 

22 say we wouldn't use the counter data.
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1 Again, I think if the counter showed a 

2 positive value -- I don't know. I would have to 

3 go look at the monitoring records for plutonium. 

4 Although, we are not doing internal dosimetry. We 

5 don't have a coworker model. So, it is a difficult 

6 situation. I'm not sure how to get out of it. 

7 That is how we ended up where we were. We just 

8 would use the values, even acknowledging that 

9 detection limits would be reported somewhat 

10 differently today. But there is no way to -- I 

11 don't know of any way to figure that out.

12 The other alternative is to just not to 

13 use them at all, to say that they are not 

14 sufficiently accurate. But since we have a 

15 reported value --- yeah.

16 DR. HUGHES: Anybody else? Anything 

17 to add? Okay, shall we move on --

18 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yes.

19 DR. HUGHES: -- to the next finding?

20 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yes. Let's move 

21 on.

22 DR. HUGHES: The next finding was this 
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1 finding 11, which is also related to the in vivo 

2 counts. That is the one that the next finding that 

3 is listed as open on my list.

4 MR. KATZ: Can I just get 

5 clarification, though? So, finding 7, what are 

6 we doing? Is that closed at this point?

7 DR. NETON: Well, I don't know. I mean 

8 --

9 MR. KATZ: What does the Work Group 

10 want to do with that situation?

11 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Are we going to 

12 come to any close agreement on it? Probably not.

13 Guys on the phone, you have thoughts?

14 DR. LIPSZTEIN: You are talking about 

15 11?

16 MR. KATZ: Seven. Back to seven, 

17 Joyce.

18 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Oh, go back to seven?

19 MR. KATZ: So the just question -- so 

20 I just asked the Work Group, given the discussion 

21 what do they want to do with that finding. I mean 

22 you have three choices. You can leave it in 
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1 progress. You can close it. But if you leave it 

2 in progress, then you need a path forward to be able 

3 to close it.

4 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Now, I don't know 

5 if we have a path forward. I mean I don't feel that 

6 strongly about it. I mean I think we have had a 

7 good discussion about it. So, I am prepared to --

8 MR. KATZ: To close it?

9 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: -- close it. Yes.

10 MR. KATZ: So, in effect, you are 

11 saying you basically agree with NIOSH's approach 

12 that they will handle it.

13 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: This is Dave. I 

14 also agree with the NIOSH approach and I am willing 

15 to close it.

16 MR. KATZ: And Bill?

17 DR. LIPSZTEIN: The only thing we have 

18 to note is that it is not claimant-favorable. The 

19 other option is to use only urine and feces 

20 bioassays. But I agree with Jim that for a number 

21 of these cancers, I don't know how important this 

22 discussion is on the dose detection.
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1 If there is some positive data, then 

2 -- but if it is -- I don't know. It is 

3 non-claimant-favorable but, at the same time, I 

4 don't think it makes any difference.

5 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Well, I don't --

6 DR. LIPSZTEIN: For the -- you know for 

7 numbers on the cancers.

8 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: I don't see that it 

9 is not claimant-favorable. It may not be. I will 

10 put it this way. It looks to me as if you don't 

11 have an alternative -- there's no real alternative. 

12 And I don't think what you are saying is --

13 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: It is as good as it 

14 is going to be. And NIOSH is aware of the issue, 

15 so somebody looking at an individual case --

16 DR. LIPSZTEIN: You can either use 

17 urine or feces bioassay. And NIOSH came to the 

18 conclusion that was the problem was with the -- it 

19 overestimates the deficiency. When you 

20 overestimate the deficiency, you get a lower 

21 detection limit and then you are really having a 

22 number that doesn't really mean anything. And it 
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1 is not claimant-favorable because if you had a 

2 higher MDA, then you had a higher dose.

3 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: And you can 

4 determine that. I mean you can look at the urine 

5 bioassay.

6 DR. LIPSZTEIN: I don't know what, for 

7 each individual case --

8 DR. NETON: I think, Joyce, if we had 

9 your urine bioassay, in this case I would agree with 

10 you that we should use that over the in vivo count. 

11 But if all we have is an in vivo count, then I think 

12 we would have to use it. There is no other way to 

13 do that. Right?

14 DR. LIPSZTEIN: It is a knowing that it 

15 is not claimant-favorable.

16 DR. NETON: What else would you do, 

17 though?

18 MR. KATZ: It is claimant-favorable 

19 because there is a lack of an alternative. So, it 

20 is the most claimant-favorable thing you can do.

21 DR. NETON: The alternative is not to 

22 use it and say we can't use it because it is not 
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1 claimant-favorable.

2 DR. LIPSZTEIN: And also if you are 

3 using variations for plutonium, you have to know 

4 the age and flow rate.

5 DR. NETON: Exactly.

6 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Which is something 

7 that you also don't know exactly from the 

8 discussion on finding 6.

9 DR. NETON: Right. Yes, it is a tough 

10 issue. We are dealing with non-presumptive 

11 cancers and, again, partial dose reconstructions.

12 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes.

13 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Well, I'm 

14 comfortable with closing.

15 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Okay.

16 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay, so be it. 

17 It is closed. We can always come back and discuss 

18 it because we are not going to close the whole thing 

19 out. Okay, 11.

20 DR. HUGHES: Okay, this is also related 

21 to the in vivo counts. This is regarding the 

22 Helgeson Company-provided chest count data. And 
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1 there was an issue that when Helgeson did counts 

2 at other sites, it was determined that there was 

3 -- the counts for uranium were biased high and 

4 represented false positives. This affected the 

5 data at the Pantex Plant.

6 We found Helgeson did a few instances 

7 where they provided in vivo counts for NUMEC. So, 

8 we looked into it a little more. NUMEC used the 

9 Helgeson mobile whole body counter for plutonium 

10 and americium counts mostly. In the few instances 

11 where they did the pre-enriched uranium or for 

12 uranium-235, the MDA reported for uranium-235 in 

13 1968 is 18 micrograms. But NUMEC did merge with 

14 the whole body counts at the low-level radiation 

15 monitoring facility at the University of 

16 Pittsburgh, which there is many more counts. 

17 So, we have these two -- but we have two 

18 sets of data for in vivo. We have some that were 

19 done by Helgeson, some that were done by University 

20 of Pittsburgh and they typically have different MDA 

21 values reported. So, that is the reason why we see 

22 these different values. The reported value at the 
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1 University of Pittsburgh was 63 milligrams for 

2 uranium-235. So, we could certainly clarify that 

3 in the TBD. I don't think it is spelled out in that 

4 much detail.

5 The issue with Pantex was that the 

6 counts for uranium were biased high and represented 

7 false positives. It has been done at the -- the 

8 Pantex TBD has eliminated all references to 

9 Helgeson in vivo counts because it was determined 

10 that they are not reliable and can't be used.

11 In this case for NUMEC, if they were 

12 used, it would not be to the detriment of the 

13 claimant, since it would produce a positive bias. 

14 And there is really -- again, we are at the point 

15 where we can either use this data or we cannot use 

16 it, if it is available for a claimant.

17 And that is pretty much where we are at. 

18 There is not really a correction factor or anything 

19 we can develop for this, that I am aware of, aside 

20 from determining that we shouldn't be using it for 

21 an unpresumptive claim. This is where we are.

22 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: So, yes.
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1 MR. STIVER: Joyce, would you like to 

2 weigh in on that?

3 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes, I am here. I 

4 think this is exactly the opposite of seven. I 

5 think the counting is not reliable but, in this 

6 case, it is claimant-favorable and it is 

7 non-presumptive cancers also. For me, it is good. 

8 So, it is okay. This is better than seven.

9 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay. So, we can 

10 close it out?

11 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes, because it is 

12 claimant-favorable, even if it is a false positive.

13 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yes. Okay?

14 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay.

15 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Closed, it is. 

16 Not happily, but closed. The best we could do, 

17 again. Okay, next.

18 DR. HUGHES: Okay, finding 12. This 

19 is regarding Table 6-2 in the TBD. Is that right?

20 There was an issue regarding the table 

21 and the associated text in Table 6.3.2 of the Site 

22 Profile because there was some oversights and 
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1 inconsistencies or errors.

2 This was discussed last year and we 

3 provided a response and a little bit more detail, 

4 as we were reading and there were still some 

5 inconsistencies and they elaborated that more 

6 information, essentially, was needed how data from 

7 the neutron detection devices will be used to 

8 reconstruct neutron doses. There is an issue 

9 regarding the different descriptions of the 

10 dosimeters in the TBD.

11 We believe the guidance during the TBD 

12 revision process and when discussing with ORAU, the 

13 consensus was the available guidance is suitable 

14 for assigning neutron doses for partial dose 

15 reconstructions. And if SC&A has any more 

16 questions regarding the details, we have to -- the 

17 dose reconstructors on the phone. So, we can 

18 certainly clarify that. But at this point in the 

19 TBD we can't really find anything that is an error.

20 Now, there is different dosimeters 

21 listed for different time periods and this is the 

22 detail that is in some of those tables has been 
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1 extracted from various documents. It doesn't 

2 necessarily show up in a worker's file. So, if you 

3 see a neutron reading, you don't necessarily know. 

4 You would kind of have to make assumptions.

5 So, I'm not really sure how the neutron 

6 dose is assigned in cases. Now we also have the 

7 neutron/photon ratio that can be used. I think 

8 this is regarding TBDs -- TLDs. I'm sorry. This 

9 was effectively their period. So, I mean if you 

10 have any outstanding questions, we can discuss them 

11 now.

12 MR. STIVER: Yes, Joe, are you still on 

13 the line? 

14 MR. ZLOTNICKI: Yes, I am. This is Joe 

15 Zlotnicki, SC&A.

16 Yes, I think one of the issues was just 

17 that there was an inconsistency between the table 

18 and the TBD and the text. And in one place, it 

19 indicated that something did not have -- for a 

20 particular time period, that a dosimeter did not 

21 have a neutron capability, whereas, the table 

22 indicated that it did. 
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1 So, again, it may be that the individual 

2 bios for the workers have all this clarified but 

3 in the TBD, I have to go on that. The Z badge from 

4 Landauer does contain a CR-39 neutron detector. 

5 And it was just a case of clarifying whether the 

6 table or the text were correct for the period of 

7 interest.

8 So, as far as I know, that is still an 

9 open issue. It may just be more of a typo and 

10 clarification that they just need to agree with 

11 each other. Was it a Z badge? If so, there was 

12 neutron for that period.

13 And then there was a second area which 

14 related to the mention of thermal neutron dosimetry 

15 but no indication as to how that was done. One 

16 would assume that it was a cadmium filter in a film 

17 badge but it didn't mention it. So, those were the 

18 two sort of specific sort of basic facts about the 

19 neutron dosimetry for a couple of time windows.

20 DR. HUGHES: Right. Dennis, do you 

21 have anything to add regarding to that? Because 

22 I have not seen any resolution.
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1 MR. STRENGE: No. Basically, when we 

2 do dose reconstruction, we see what doses are given 

3 and apply the correction factors, ICRP-60 certain 

4 factors and do the calculations. The calculations 

5 are pretty straightforward.

6 MR. ZLOTNICKI: You see from my point 

7 of view, I am only seeing the TBD. So, I can't 

8 judge whether or not you can reconstruct doses,

9 given what is being described if I can't be assured 

10 that what is said there is accurate.

11 But maybe in this case, you actually 

12 have more information than was claimed in the TBD 

13 for a period of time for neutron. But as you said, 

14 in the actual file for the worker, you have got what 

15 you have got. But I don't see the individual files 

16 so it is hard for me to know, especially in this 

17 case on the thermal what is going on.

18 MR. STRENGE: Right, we very seldom see 

19 an entry for thermal dose. In fact, for NUMEC, I 

20 don't remember seeing anything for thermal.

21 MR. ZLOTNICKI: Me either. That is 

22 unusual.
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1 MR. STRENGE: We picked them out of the 

2 neutrons and applied the energy spectrums 

3 according to one of the other tables in the TBD.

4 DR. NETON: Well, I guess what we need 

5 to clarify is Table 6-2 says they used Z badges and 

6 it says that they were used for beta-gamma. Do we 

7 have neutron doses for the CR-39 component for the 

8 Z badges, I mean in that era?

9 MR. ZLOTNICKI: Exactly, that is the 

10 question.

11 DR. NETON: It seems like we need to

12 answer the question. I don't think we have done 

13 that here. Maybe we misunderstood the question. 

14 I haven't reviewed this real thoroughly in a while.

15 MR. STRENGE: Well, we seldom know what 

16 type of badge was used from the records. They just 

17 say neutron dose and here it is. And very seldom 

18 do we know what dosimetry was used. Once in a while 

19 they will say TLD. 

20 MR. ZLOTNICKI: Are you suggesting you 

21 don't have the raw -- in this case this is a Landauer 

22 dosimeter. Are you saying you don't have the 
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1 Landauer dosimetry report for that period in 

2 general?

3 MR. STRENGE: Well, quite often we have 

4 Landauer reports and they have one line -- if the 

5 worker had beta-gamma, we will have a line of dose 

6 values for that. If they were also assigned a 

7 neutron dosimeter, there will be a second line with 

8 a neutron results.

9 MR. ZLOTNICKI: Yes, but does it tell 

10 them on the report that indicates the type of badge 

11 that was assigned to the individual for every 

12 reporting period?

13 MR. STRENGE: I believe it is like one 

14 or two or three and that is just saying beta-gamma, 

15 I think, versus neutron. I would have to look at 

16 the -- I have got --

17 (Simultaneous speaking.)

18 MR. ZLOTNICKI: It is also important if 

19 you have the original reports, it is there. 

20 Obviously, if someone has translated that into a 

21 database for the facility, then obviously, I have 

22 no idea what they do there.
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1 MR. STRENGE: Okay. Anyway --

2 DR. NETON: I think, Joe, we need to go 

3 back and take a look at this a little closer and 

4 clarify what was used when and for what purpose.

5 MR. ZLOTNICKI: Right. And by the 

6 way, getting back to the earlier -- I don't want 

7 to resurface the earlier discussion with John that 

8 went on at the beginning of this section but, 

9 clearly, in looking at the intent of the RSO and 

10 so on, if some people were given badges with neutron 

11 dosimeters in them and some were not, that gives 

12 some indication of at least what was in the mind 

13 of the RSO at the time that occurred, rather than 

14 everyone getting the same type of dosimeter.

15 DR. NETON: Right.

16 MR. STRENGE: Yes, the Landauer 

17 reports seem to imply that there was actually two 

18 dosimeters, physically separate but I am not 

19 positive on that.

20 MR. ZLOTNICKI: The Z dosimeter, there 

21 is a TLD component to it and a CR-39 component but 

22 they are both held in the same holder.
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1 MR. STRENGE: Okay.

2 MR. SMITH: This is Matt Smith with 

3 ORAU Team. The other thing that is in the mix is 

4 the TBD revision itself. What has just been 

5 discussed with the differences between table and 

6 text I believe was part of our internal comments 

7 on squaring things up. Regarding the Z-1 

8 dosimeter, again, my thought is that we are going 

9 towards an N/P ratio on that front but we can leave 

10 that to the next issue.

11 MR. ZLOTNICKI: Yes. So, my 

12 suggestion is that obviously I haven't seen the new 

13 revision and you may have cleaned it up in terms 

14 of the ticking of time between the tables and the 

15 text. To me, that just has to be in abeyance.

16 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay.

17 MR. SMITH: I'll take notes on this 

18 again and we will revisit it.

19 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay. Okay, 

20 moving along.

21 DR. HUGHES: Okay. This is finding 

22 13.
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1 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yes.

2 DR. HUGHES: This was --

3 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: So this is part of 

4 the coworker model.

5 DR. HUGHES: Yes, this is part of the 

6 coworker discussion.

7 DR. NETON: I agree we have had that 

8 discussion.

9 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: We don't need to 

10 rehash that.

11 DR. MAURO: Oh, you don't want to talk 

12 about that again?

13 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: No.

14 MR. STIVER: Are you ready for round 

15 two, John?

16 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay, 14.

17 DR. HUGHES: Fourteen is the 

18 discussion of the adjustment factors for NTA film. 

19 We decided we could come up with a somewhat 

20 rudimentary neutron/photon approach that can be 

21 used. It has already been reviewed by SC&A and has 

22 found that it is not comprehensive or robust and 
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1 that we should come up with a more bounding 

2 approach.

3 We have reviewed it and due to the 

4 limited data, we really have not developed anything 

5 else for now just because we don't have any more 

6 data. That is all we have really.

7 MR. ZLOTNICKI: Yes, this is Joe 

8 Zlotnicki here. Leaving the coworker SEC thing 

9 aside for a minute and just looking at even a given 

10 individual, I think it is very, very difficult to 

11 have an N/P ratio for some areas of the facilities, 

12 such as someone who works with polonium-beryllium 

13 or radium-beryllium sources in shielded or 

14 unshielded condition. 

15 The enormous variation in the ratio of 

16 the gamma to neutron that you would see in that 

17 situation with some of them being much more 

18 energetic gamma emitters, that is a very 

19 complicated thing because your ratios are going to 

20 be vastly different. And unless you have some 

21 indication of what the person was working with.

22 So, in other words, it may be that in 
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1 certain areas that they are just in general plant 

2 areas and there is a normal background from uranium 

3 and neutron, it may be plausible, particularly 

4 anyone working with shielded and unshielded, 

5 especially gamma shielded and unshielded neutron 

6 sources, you can have vast spectral differences or 

7 ratio differences between the two.

8 DR. NETON: This is Jim. If someone 

9 could refresh my memory. Is it a strict constant 

10 ratio that we applied or is it a distribution with 

11 a central tendency and uncertainty associated with 

12 it?

13 MR. SMITH: This is Matt Smith with 

14 ORAU Team. There is kind of a general factor which 

15 has a geometric mean and GSD; another factor that 

16 is aimed at glove box workers, again, with a GM and 

17 GSD; and then a single factor that is aimed at folks 

18 that did work with the neutron sources. And you 

19 know it is based on a combination of photon 

20 measurement and neutron calculation.

21 DR. NETON: Right.

22 MR. SMITH: And that one is at 2.3.
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1 DR. NETON: Okay, what are the GSDs on 

2 these values?

3 MR. SMITH: It's 0.3 for in a general 

4 area, a factor of one for the glove box workers.

5 DR. NETON: But I mean the GSD on them 

6 is?

7 MR. SMITH: Oh, I'm sorry. The GSD in 

8 both cases is 1.5 to 2.0.

9 DR. NETON: Okay.

10 DR. MAURO: This is John. Is the 

11 write-up of finding 14 in Dennis' work is basically 

12 that answer? In other words, does that material, 

13 in effect, answer the question? Is that what it 

14 is there for?

15 DR. NETON: I don't know. I was trying 

16 to get at the idea that we don't normally assign 

17 a constant value as an N/P ratio.

18 DR. MAURO: And there isn't.

19 DR. NETON: And we have a distribution 

20 value. So, I understand Joe's concern but I think 

21 we have tried to address that by incorporating 

22 uncertainty in there, in the use of those values.
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1 DR. MAURO: Well, I only reason I 

2 pointed this out is that it appears that 

3 considerable work went into Dennis' work on finding 

4 14. It lays out what the neutron/photon ratios are 

5 for different circumstances. And there is a 

6 statement that said this approach will be included 

7 in the Site Profile. So, I am assuming that that 

8 write-up is, in fact, the write-up we will probably 

9 see in the next Site Profile.

10 DR. HUGHES: Yes.

11 DR. NETON: I would suspect so, yes.

12 MR. STRENGE: Yes, what Matt just 

13 outlined is in the revised TBD.

14 DR. NETON: Okay.

15 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: So, do we put this 

16 one in abeyance until it is final or is it closed?

17 MR. KATZ: Sounds like you want to look 

18 at that one.

19 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yes, I think so. 

20 Sixteen is coworker model. Seventeen was 

21 previously closed.

22 MEMBER FIELD: Fifteen, I think is --
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1 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Oh, 15, yes.

2 DR. HUGHES: I wasn't going to 

3 interrupt you.

4 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: No, I'm sorry, 15. 

5 I was on the wrong page for abeyance here. Okay, 

6 15.

7 DR. HUGHES: This is regarding 

8 different photon energies regarding operations at 

9 NUMEC would indicate the need for possible 

10 adjustment factors for film badge dosimeter 

11 readings.

12 This was discussed last year and then 

13 it did remain open and stated that it needs to be 

14 revised for potential over- and under-responses. 

15 There was some guidance that we initially provided 

16 that was added to the TBD. That is really all we 

17 did. The guidance, except, we assigned doses a 

18 certain way, so less than 30 keV photons. And that 

19 is really it. So, any additional questions, we can 

20 answer.

21 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: So, is there 

22 additional review going on?
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1 DR. HUGHES: No, we reviewed what we 

2 have and then we cannot do any additional data 

3 capture. We haven't found any information. 

4 There was an attempt to come up with some adjustment 

5 factors by the NUMEC HP at the time. I think it 

6 was from 1965 thereabouts. But other than that, 

7 we really haven't found any other information.

8 MR. ZLOTNICKI: This is Joe again. I 

9 think that this is talking about we don't know the 

10 format of the dosimeter, how thick the coating or 

11 covering layers were on the dosimeter. 

12 In some places -- in some industrial 

13 settings, it was quite common to bag the dosimeter, 

14 even in some undetermined thickness of plastic to 

15 protect it from just the dirty industrial 

16 environment. That means we don't really know how 

17 much of the very low-energy photon or beta was being 

18 absorbed.

19 My suggestion would be if you don't 

20 know, you could bound that by looking at all the 

21 sites of the worst case and just say assume it was 

22 that if you don't know and then apply the 
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1 appropriate adjustment factor for that thickness 

2 of whatever type of plastic would likely --

3 probably vinyl in those days -- would have been used 

4 to coat the badge.

5 MR. SMITH: This is Matt Smith with 

6 ORAU Team. To address this, what we suggested and 

7 what is in the revised TBD, again for a further look 

8 down the road, is going with an approach that we 

9 used with Savannah River, which is to go ahead and 

10 use the open window value to determine the less than 

11 30 keV photons. 

12 I can't speak right now today to whether 

13 or not bagging was done at this facility. I am 

14 certainly not aware of that process being done. 

15 Certainly in the film era, we see or know that we 

16 have got a certain amount of over-response going 

17 on in that, oh, I will say 70 to 100 keV range. I 

18 realize we have got some low-energy X-rays and a 

19 60 keV for americium. But there is also 

20 over-response going on that is working, in a sense,

21 in the favor of what we are trying to do. 

22 We felt this was a pretty favorable 
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1 approach to take to account for any low-energy 

2 photon dose that wasn't being captured by what we 

3 usually would call the deep dose component.

4 MR. ZLOTNICKI: That's what is written 

5 up in the revised TBD, right?

6 MR. SMITH: Yes, that is the approach. 

7 It is discussed in the paper put together by Dennis 

8 from 2015. That is the one that is dated May 14, 

9 2015. Now, that is another change bound for the 

10 revised TBD.

11 MR. ZLOTNICKI: This is Joe again. I 

12 think that, again, we should probably just look at 

13 what is actually stated. It sounds reasonable for 

14 photon. I don't remember off the top of my head 

15 if there was any beta issue or not at this site.

16 MR. SMITH: You know in this site, I 

17 believe we are looking at protactinium electrons. 

18 So, we are talking about pretty high-energy 

19 electrons, source-term as well. I believe using 

20 that open window would give me a pretty good read 

21 on what is there.

22 MR. ZLOTNICKI: If it wasn't covered 
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1 up. One of the questions was what adjustment 

2 factor should be used compared with the calibration 

3 of the device. And obviously, we don't know and, 

4 depending on which era we are talking about, we 

5 don't know what the open window covering was and 

6 whether or not there should be a correction with 

7 protactinium. It depends on whether they 

8 calibrated with the depleted uranium or whatever.

9 So, certainly, if it was pouched, there 

10 would need to be a correction factor, which, by the 

11 sound of it, we don't have good records as to what 

12 would have been done.

13 So, again, the only thing one can do is 

14 assume there was a pouch, assume it wasn't 

15 corrected for and just apply whatever that 

16 correction factor would be for the beta of 

17 interest.

18 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Other comments?

19 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: No.

20 MR. KATZ: Well, does NIOSH agree with 

21 that approach?

22 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Could you just 
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1 summarize it again, quick?

2 MR. SMITH: From ORAU's side?

3 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yes.

4 MR. SMITH: From ORAU's side, again, we 

5 are taking an approach and I'm sorry I was trying 

6 to get it pulled up but it is online in one of the 

7 Savannah River Technical Information Bulletins. 

8 It is either number six or number seven, I believe. 

9 And I will try to grab that, while we have 

10 discussions on other issues.

11 But the approach that we are 

12 recommending here is similar or the same as what 

13 we did with Savannah River during the film era, 

14 which is to go ahead and use the open window value 

15 determination of low-energy photons and electrons. 

16 In other words, all non-penetrating radiation.

17 We believe it is likely favorable on the 

18 low-energy photon front because we know there is 

19 some film over-response in the 100 keV range. And 

20 we also feel it is likely accurate for the electron 

21 source term because we are dealing with relatively 

22 high energy electron sources. I think we are in 
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1 the 2 MeV range.

2 Do we have data on what the thicknesses 

3 are for the open window and/or was there bagging? 

4 I don't have any knowledge on bagging and Dennis 

5 you can weigh in if you have seen anything mentioned 

6 in the material you have read through.

7 MR. STRENGE: No, I haven't.

8 MR. SMITH: Same material. Okay. 

9 And on the dosimeter design, I have not seen a 

10 schematic on these. So, I'm not really in a good 

11 position to weigh in right now on what the covered 

12 thicknesses were. Certainly, I wouldn't think 

13 they would be any more different than what we were 

14 seeing with Savannah River. And that is all I have 

15 got.

16 DR. NETON: I mean that sounds 

17 reasonable to me. I don't know if SC&A agrees with 

18 that approach or not.

19 MR. STIVER: What do you think, Joe?

20 MR. ZLOTNICKI: Unfortunately, I 

21 haven't looked at that Savannah River document or 

22 if I have, it was five years ago or something. So, 
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1 I would need to look at that. I mean it sounds 

2 reasonable but I haven't looked at the approach so 

3 I can't give a definitive answer.

4 DR. NETON: I think we need to hold that 

5 one in progress.

6 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yes, let's keep 

7 that in progress, abeyance.

8 DR. NETON: And maybe Matt can identify 

9 the section of the Savannah River document that we 

10 could look at.

11 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yes, it seems 

12 probably the best we could do but let's -- let's

13 just confirm that before we close it out.

14 MR. SMITH: Yes, I will get you the TIB 

15 number here shortly.

16 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay.

17 DR. NETON: Okay, great.

18 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: So, sixteen.

19 DR. HUGHES: Again, that is the 

20 coworker model.

21 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: That is the 

22 coworker.
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1 DR. HUGHES: Everything else is 

2 residual period.

3 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yes.

4 DR. NETON: Eighteen -- seventeen is 

5 closed.

6 MR. KATZ: Seventeen was the same, 

7 coworker?

8 DR. NETON: No, no, 17 was --

9 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: No, 17 was closed.

10 DR. NETON: And 18 is that GA/BZ thing 

11 which was already discussed.

12 DR. HUGHES: That has been revised.

13 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yes, 19 is closed, 

14 20 is closed, 21 is closed. And then there is all 

15 of these dose reconstruction, which we have 

16 discussed coworker models.

17 MR. STIVER: Maybe summarize what is on 

18 the agenda for going forward, then?

19 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yes. Go ahead, 

20 summarize it.

21 MR. KATZ: What's on the agenda for 

22 what?
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1 MR. STIVER: Going forward -- path 

2 forward. Kind of summarize it, since you have got 

3 it all.

4 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: We have 12 we put 

5 in abeyance. We have here 14 and --

6 MR. KATZ: But 12 is really in 

7 progress, I think. We said in abeyance but it is 

8 really in progress.

9 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay, that's fine.

10 MR. KATZ: Fourteen was in abeyance.

11 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Fifteen we had in 

12 progress. And I think everything else is closed.

13 MR. STIVER: Six was in abeyance, too.

14 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Was it?

15 MR. KATZ: Finding 6 is in abeyance, 

16 yes.

17 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yes.

18 MR. KATZ: And I don't think anything 

19 sits with SC&A. 

20 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: No.

21 MR. KATZ: If it is in abeyance, it all 

22 sits with NIOSH. And then in progress is with 
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1 NIOSH, too.

2 DR. NETON: Well, I think the last one 

3 we just talked about, the photon open window issue, 

4 SC&A may want to look at that, too.

5 MR. KATZ: Right.

6 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yes, look at 

7 Savannah River.

8 DR. NETON: Look at Savannah River, 

9 too, and talk about the open window approach.

10 (Simultaneous speaking.)

11 MR. KATZ: Right, Matt was going to 

12 send the reference.

13 MR. SMITH: This is Matt again with 

14 ORAU Team. It is OCAS-TIB number 6. This is from 

15 2007. I will put a caveat on it. As everyone 

16 knows, Savannah River was one of the first sites 

17 out of the gate and a lot of things changed, as we 

18 rolled along. You will see the general method is 

19 described just previously in section 3 of that TIB.

20 But just be aware that there are some 

21 Savannah River-specific correction factors there 

22 that are mentioned that would not necessarily apply 
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1 to NUMEC. Really, it is a correction factor 

2 relating to the HP(10) quantity. And Joe, he will 

3 know what is going on there.

4 But there will likely be more questions 

5 but the general method is given there in Section 

6 3.

7 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Okay, very good. 

8 Okay and then we have the coworker I think we've 

9 --

10 MR. KATZ: Killed that.

11 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: -- discussed and 

12 --

13 MR. KATZ: Beat it to death.

14 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: -- hopefully, we 

15 are resolved enough on it.

16 DR. NETON: I think Dr. Kotelchuck is 

17 still wanted to --

18 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes, I will check 

19 it out. I will check it out further and try to 

20 understand a little bit more.

21 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yes, the historic 

22 perspective on it.
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1 MR. KATZ: So, do you want to leave all 

2 those in progress then, or you -- as a Work Group, 

3 or are they closed?

4 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: My sense would be 

5 to be closed. I mean I am getting up to speed for 

6 Dave on what is in the past and the issue of what 

7 do you do with individuals who do not -- who would 

8 be an SEC, other than --

9 MR. STIVER: Well, that is more of a 

10 generalized --

11 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: That is a 

12 generalized discussion.

13 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: You know there is 

14 no reason -- we don't have to be unanimous. If the 

15 other folks want to close it and I will just 

16 abstain, that's fine, for the moment.

17 That is okay and I will learn more and 

18 if it ever comes back before the Board or before 

19 this committee, I will be better prepared to move 

20 ahead.

21 MR. KATZ: Okay.

22 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: That's fine. We 
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1 just want to be sure you could get the information.

2 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: You are not doing 

3 it over my objection. Put it that way.

4 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Yes, good. Thank 

5 you.

6 MR. KATZ: Okay, so anyway, we have a 

7 few items from NUMEC that will be on the agenda next 

8 time we meet, next time the Work Group meets, but 

9 you guys took care of a lot of work today.

10 DR. NETON: Yes, it was a very good 

11 discussion.

12 MR. STIVER: We made a lot of progress 

13 today.

14 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: Any other issues, 

15 people have --

16 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: No.

17 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: -- before we break 

18 for lunch at least?

19 Adjourn

20 MR. KATZ: Yes, we are adjourning.

21 CHAIRMAN ANDERSON: We are adjourning.
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1 MR. KATZ: Thank you, everybody.

2 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 

3 went off the record at 1:02 p.m.)

4

5

6

7